University of Virginia Library

Drug Paradox

Reprinted from The Diamondback
student newspaper of the University of
Maryland.

Nixon's answer to drug abuse is as
inconclusive as the information collected so
far on marijuana.

More information will be helpful to the
elite intellectuals using drugs - the college
students and sophisticated party-hoppers in
the cities - but Nixon says he wants to stop
the city crime invoked by drug needs.

Such crime is not committed by a group
which will respond to information.

Naked crime to feed drug habits is
performed by hardened heroin and morphine
addicts, not by the 13-, 14-, and 15-year-olds.
Nixon is upset about. Kids use marijuana and
speed.

Even secretary Finch admits that not
enough research about marijuana is available
from government scientists to make intelligent
comment.

"The fact is, we just don't know," Finch
said. Does this mean that if the government
finds no serious problems with marijuana,
other than its obvious high, that it will be
legalized?

Hard drug addicts need clinical and
psychological help, not information. They
need an atmosphere in which they can go to a
local clinic and get help without the
overriding fear of judicial reprisal for drug use
and constant harassment by government
officials over sources.

But apparently Nixon is contradicting
himself. He says he wants to stop the crime
drugs cause, but he will aim a publicity attack
at the young to "show that drugs are not
hip."

Obviously, some youths get hung up on
the wrong kinds of drugs and some people
pop over LSD and speed. But the Finch crew
doesn't have information to disseminate
except that drugs are bad and unhip.

Drugs are hip. No youth is going to be
stupid enough to swallow some line like
"speed kills" when he occasionally takes
reasonably small doses and it doesn't kill him
or his friends.

The Nixon administration's attack on
drugs will be psychological propaganda not
accurate medical advice, especially when little
or none is available.

If Nixon is actually interested in
stopping serious drug use, and not
experimental drug use, his attack is
ridiculous. Super syndicate crime
organizations import hard drugs and feed on
the most vulnerable part of society, the
poor, which has to steal to support the habit.

Why isn't the Nixon attack directed at that
very real center of the problem? And just
what has he done to really help the
impoverished?

And when is someone going to shut up that
bubbling idiot Mitchell who insists on a
no-knock, drug-bust policy to hit middle class
kids smoking pot?