Happy Anniversary, Schafer Commission

[Originally posted on goofyblog 3.24.07]

Did you hear the news? The Shafer Commission released their report on drug policy and dropped this bombshell:

[T]he criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession [of marijuana] 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 [marijuana] use … 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.

… Therefore, the commission recommends … [that the] possession of marihuana for personal use no longer be an offense, [and that the] casual distribution of small amounts of marihuana for no remuneration, or insignificant remuneration, no longer be an offense.

What Commission was it? In 1971, President Nixon commissioned the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse — chaired by ex-Gov. Shafer (PA). In March ’72, they stated the above excerpt and more.

Since the Commission issued it’s report, 35 years ago:

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

• U.S. taxpayers have spent well over $20 billion enforcing criminal marijuana laws, yet marijuana availability and use among the public remains virtually unchanged.
  

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

• Total U.S. marijuana arrests increased 165 percent during the 1990s, from 287,850 in 1991 to well over 700,000 in 2000, before reaching an all-time high of nearly 800,000 in 2005. However, according to the government’s own data, this dramatic increase in the number of persons arrested for pot was not associated with any reduction in the number of new users, any reduction in marijuana potency, or any increases in the black market price of marijuana.
  

• Currently, 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.
  

From AlterNet.