Shafer Commission anniversary:

As the Report of the National Commission On Marihuana marked its 35th anniversary, its reform message is even more pressing today than it was then.

Recommendations to Congress by the National Commission on Marihuana (sic) and Drug Abuse that called for ending the criminal arrest and prosecution of adults who possess or use small amounts of cannabis are more applicable today than they were then, says NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre.

Instead, then-President Richard Nixon rejected the Commission’s determinations, electing to launch a federal “War on Drugs” strategy that still exists today.

The first, and only, US Congressional commission to address cannabis and public policy recommended Congress amend federal law so possession and use of small quantities of cannabis by adults would no longer be a criminal offense. Nixon’s appointed Blue Ribbon Panel, “The Shafer Commission,” concluded:

“[T]he criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use. It implies an overwhelming indictment of the behavior which we believe is not appropriate. The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only with the greatest reluctance.”

The Commission recommended, for the first time, that Congress enact a national policy of marijuana ‘decriminalization,’ whereby the possession of cannabis for personal use as well as the casual distribution of small amounts of marihuana for little-or-no remuneration would no longer be a criminal offense.

“In the years since former President Richard Nixon and Congress rejected the Shafer Commission’s recommendations, the US government has spent billions of taxpayers’ dollars targeting and arresting minor marijuana offenders without achieving any reduction in marijuana use, availability, or demand,” St. Pierre says.

      He notes that since 1972:

• Approximately 16.5 million Americans have been arrested for cannabis violations — more than 80 percent of them on minor possession charges;

• US taxpayers have spent well over $20 billion dollars enforcing criminal marijuana laws, yet cannabis availability and use among the public remains virtually unchanged;

• Nearly one-quarter of a million Americans have been denied federal financial aid for education because of anti-drug provisions to the Higher Education Act. Most of these applicants were convicted of minor cannabis possession offenses.

“In 1972, the year the Shafer Commission first recommended decriminalizing small amounts of cannabis, the FBI reported that fewer than 300,000 Americans were arrested for pot,” St. Pierre said. “Today, nearly 800,000 Americans are arrested annually on marijuana charges — an increase of more than 150 percent — and 90 percent of those are charged with simple possession only, the very practice that Commission demanded Congress end 35 years ago.”

“One in eight inmates incarcerated for drug crimes is behind bars for pot, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $1 billion per year. It’s time for the new Democrat Congress to revisit this issue and bring an end to the needless arrest and incarceration of otherwise law abiding citizens who consume cannabis in the privacy of their home.”