FORMER CABINET SECRETARY, NOW A WESTPORTER, RECALLS EVENTFUL DAYS

Joseph Califano is perhaps best known as the Secretary of Health,
Education and Welfare during the Carter administration. He was also an
aide in the White House of President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

When Califano spoke to the Y's Men of Westport/Weston last Thursday at
the Saugatuck Church, it seemed that the Westport resident shared at
least two traits of that latter president.

One was "the terrific sense of humor" that he attributed to Johnson.
He said it never left the president even in the darkest moments of the
administration.

Califano noted that after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King,
"We had troops in eight or nine cities. I would bring [the president]
reports of activities in Washington or Chicago or whatever. One night
I brought him a report that Stokely Carmichael was going to march on
Georgetown [where all the liberals and Washington Post columnists
lived] and burn it down."

Johnson replied, "G-- d---, I've waited 35 years for this!"

On a more serious note, Califano said that Johnson was a true believer
in civil rights and in the war on poverty.

Saying that the president "started a revolution in this country,"
Califano enumerated some of the accomplishments of LBJ's
administration: Medicare, Medicaid, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 on
public accommodations, the first Clean Air Act in this country, the
Truth-in-Lending bill, the Truth-in-Packaging bill, the creation of
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Hirschhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden, the Head Start program, the extension of financial
support for college to everyone - not just those who had been in the
military, and "a whole attitude toward equality" that changed how
people thought.

Califano is currently the founder and President of The National Center
on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), a think/action tank of
approximately 75 people affiliated with Columbia University. He is
also an adjunct professor of Public Health at Columbia Medical School.

Listening to the former Cabinet member, one can see another similarity
to Johnson. Califano seems every bit as committed to the health and
welfare of this country today as Johnson was to the civil rights and
anti-poverty programs of the 1960s.

Califano pointed out that smoking, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse
filled half the hospital beds in this country today. When a Y's man
indicated that it might be a good idea to legalize drugs as some other
"civilized" countries had done, the former cabinet member pointed out
that wherever drugs have been legalized, the drug problems are much
greater. He cited Italy's serious heroin problem and said that the
Swiss had started to reduce drug laws and then backed off.

Califano pointed out that marijuana is a dangerous drug that is much
stronger than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. He said it affects
emotional growth, short-term memory and, obviously, motor skills. He
pointed out that in Los Angeles a youngster has to be picked up 9 or
10 times for marijuana possession before anything happens to him, "and
in the meantime, he sinks in deeper and deeper."

He suggested that a person picked up for marijuana should be treated
the way a drunk driver was and sent to a course where he could be made
aware of the danger. He noted that there were 2.2 million people in
prisons today and that about 1.7 million of those had either committed
their crimes when they were high - and it could be a serious crime
such as murder or robbery - or they stole money to buy drugs, or they
were regular users of drugs or alcohol, or they had violated drug laws.

Only about a quarter-million of those in prison sold drugs but were
not users, said Califano, indicating that they were truly the bad
guys. However, he said, thousands and thousands of the rest could be
helped if we provided treatment while they were in prison.

"In my judgment, we're making a horrendous mistake," he added, saying
that when he talked to people at the state level about this problem,
they said "We want roads, we want computers in the schools;" or "We
want sewers," citing other uses for their money.

Then Califano threw out this statistic: "We are four percent of the
world's population, but we consume 50 percent of the world's cocaine."