GEORGE WASHINGTON U. PRESIDENT ENDORSED MARIJUANA LAW REPEAL

Students advocating marijuana legalization used an article written by
George Washington University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg in
the 1970s as testimony to their cause in a meeting Wednesday night.

The GW group Students for a Sensible Drug Policy passed out an
article Trachtenberg wrote in 1972 advocating the repeal of federal
marijuana laws. The article, published in the Federal Bar Journal and
co-authored by Lewis J. Paper concluded that laws prohibiting
marijuana usage should be repealed.

"I felt at the time and probably still feel that there is no reason
to give people reason to disrespect the laws," Trachtenberg said
"There is no compelling reason if the law is not enforceable."

Trachtenberg wrote in the article, "Enforcement of marihuana laws
continues to exact three principal social costs which greatly
outweigh any proven benefit secured by those laws."

The first cost included in the article involves "social costs
affecting the entire judicial system" that congest the legal system.
Another detriment to marijuana law is that thousands of young adults
acquire criminal records, "which may fatally mar future opportunities
to lead a productive life." Third, the laws "breed contempt among
many for the legal and political systems."

These sentiments were echoed at the SSDP meeting.

"In 1998, 90.4 percent of high school seniors said it was easy to get
marijuana on school campuses," said keynote speaker Eric Sterling,
president of the Criminal Justice Foundation. "And then they tell us
that we are winning the drug war."

As council to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the
Judiciary from 1979 to 1989, Sterling was responsible for drug
enforcement and gun control.

Sterling spoke for more than an hour to the crowd of 50 students on
what he described as the "futility of the U.S. war on drugs."
Sterling also described the social, environmental and monetary costs
of "drug prohibition."

"The drug prohibition law is an inherently racist and biased law,"
Sterling said.

The Federal Bar Journal backs Sterling's arguments of the U.S.
government's attempt to fight drug use and sales.

"Whatever the depth of public fears of marihuana use, it is clear
that there is little or no substantial evidence to support them,"
Trachtenberg wrote in the article.

Trachtenberg said public fears of marijuana are valid today because
more is known about the drug and its long-term health effects than in
the 1970s.

"We know more about the lingering effects," he said.

Trachtenberg said he was happy to hear about open discussions about
marijuana laws on GW's campus.

"I've heard no lively conversation on this topic in several years,"
Trachtenberg said.