Previous Next Index Thread

A MUST Read -- "Smoke and Mirrors"

 I apologize for cross-posting this to so many newsgroups,
 but this is an extremely important book for all those that
 are concerned with drug policy reform.  It should especially
 be read by those opposing reform measures. WARNING!!! -- This 
 book might change your mind.
 Below is a little taste of Dan Baum's new book "Smoke and Mirrors".
 This is a MUST READ!!!  It gives us the recent history of the drug
 war (1967 - present) and shows step-by-step of how we got into this
 war on drugs mess. This book is very well written and well documented.
 The book should be in stock in all major bookstores.
 Dan Baum was with the Wall Street Journal and Atlanta Constitution.
 The following was compiled by Peter Webster.
 <---- Begin Included Message ---->
 Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 13:45:23 -0400
 From: Peter Webster <vignes@monaco.mc>
 Subject: Smoke and Mirrors
 Ive been reading the new book on the history of the drug war since
 Nixon declared it, *Smoke and Mirrors*, it is quite good, lots of
 inside views and details, plenty of material for the drug war criminal
 database! I'll post some of the better snippets here: the first one:
   * Events leading up to Nixon's Presidential Commission on
 Marijuana. Excerpts from Smoke and Mirrors, by Dan Baum,
 former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, copyright 1996
 Dan Baum. Published by Little, Brown and Company.*
    Senator James Eastland, Democrat of Mississippi, figured
 he would put an end to all the shilly-shallying about marijuana.
 As chairman of the Subcommittee on Internal Security, he
 opened hearings with the grandiose title "The Marijuana-
 Hashish Epidemic and Its Impact on United States Security."
    Keith Stroup was not invited to testify.
    "We make no apology for the one-sided nature of the
 hearings," Eastland said as he opened them. "They were
 deliberately planned that way."
    But Congress couldn't afford to dismiss marijuana easily,
 not when ten or twelve million Americans were smoking it.
 Not when a constitutional amendment was in the works
 lowering the voting age to eighteen. Not when marijuana
 smokers were organizing themselves into a political
 constituency under the NORML banner. There was a need at
 least to appear to take seriously the suggestion that the drug
 wasn't the gravest threat to the Republic since Quemoy and
 Matsu.
    As Eastland was working his side of the street, a young rep
 from New York named Ed Koch rose to propose a formal
 commission to study the impact of marijuana on America's
 health, legal systems, and social fabric. "It is an outrage and a
 tragedy that young men and women should be imprisoned for
 the possession of marijuana," Koch said. "The appalling
 conditions and practices in many of our penal institutions can
 do infinitely more damage to a young person than his use of
 marijuana." Only a blue-ribbon panel with a chairman
 appointed by the president, Koch said, would have the
 authority to settle once and for all the complex legal, medical,
 and social questions raised by the newly popular drug.
    Keith Stroup was furious. The new Presidential Commission
 on Marijuana was shaping up to be a reefer-madness folly. Its
 chairman, handpicked by Nixon, was the retired Republican
 governor of Pennsylvania, Raymond Shafer, a known drug
 hawk. The commission was stacked with conservative
 doctors. Senator Harold Hughes of Iowa---who never tired of

with word 'help' in message body                    netnews@sift.stanford.edu