A DIFFERENT ACCOUNT OF HISTORY

Regarding Arthur Ooms' letter of June 8 in the Saanich News.

The U.S. government has had an officially and openly stated policy of
lying about drugs since at least 1937. This isn't my opinion, it is
documented historical fact. When the Marihuana Tax Act was passed in
1937, Harry Anslinger, then head of the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Narcotics, openly stated that he realized the law was completely
unenforceable with his meager budget. Therefore, he reasoned that the
only hope was to conduct a deliberate and quite grandiose campaign of
outright fairy tales.

For example, the first U.S. Official Expert on marijuana testified in
court, under oath, that marijuana would make your incisors grow six
inches long and drip with blood.

The lies, and the policy of lying, continue to this day.

Mr. Ooms is wrong about the major studies. All of the major studies of
the drug laws in the last 100 years have concluded that the marijuana
laws were based on ignorance and nonsense and should have been
repealed long ago because they do more harm than good. This includes
the largest studies ever done by the governments of the U.S., the
U.K., Canada, and Australia, just to mention a few.

Mr. Ooms doesn't have to take my word for any of this. If he will look
at historical research at druglibrary.org/schaffer he will find
hundreds of original documents detailing the origins of the laws. If
he looks at Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy, at the same
location, he will find the full text of most of the major government
commission reports.

If Mr. Ooms knows of any significant study of the drug laws that
concluded that marijuana use and possession should be a crime, I would
love to hear about it. But he doesn't. You can bet the farm on that.

Clifford Schaffer Director

DRCNet Online Library of Drug Policy

Agua Dulce, California