Nixon Caught On Tape Downplaying Dangers of Pot

Ehrlichman and Nixon

"Nixon Started the War on Drugs. Privately, He Said Pot Was ‘Not Particularly Dangerous,’" read a startling New York Times headline last week.

Minnesota cannabis lobbyist Kurtis Hanna was responsible for the story, after he listened to hours Nixon's infamous Oval Office tapes recently uploaded by the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. Hanna told the Times he has been "fascinated by the history of drug policy ever since he was arrested inside a casino in Iowa in 2009 and charged with possession of marijuana."

“Let me say, I know nothing about marijuana. I know that it’s not particularly dangerous, in other words, and most of the kids are for legalizing it," Nixon said in a March 1973 White House meeting with aides including then–White House press secretary Ronald Ziegler and White House counsel/Watergate conspirator John Ehrlichman.

Nixon added, "I don't think marijuana is (unintelligible) bad, but on the other hand, it’s the wrong signal at this time." He then began to talk about a coming law enforcement speech in which he would "totally" oppose legalization, bragging that no administration had been as hard-line on the issue, and opening a discussion about mandatory minimum sentences; penalties like five years for a trafficker, and life without parole for repeated offenses were put on the table.

The discussion happened two years after Nixon ignited the War on Drugs by declaring drug abuse "Public Enemy Number One" and signing the law that put marijuana into the most restrictive federal Schedule I designation under the purview of the Drug Enforcement Administration he had created by administrative action. Nixon ignored the 1972 findings of the Blue-Ribbon Shafer Commission he had appointed, which recommended decriminalizing marijuana possession. 

Discussing drug use in the nation, Nixon opined in the newly discovered tape, "If you could get them off of heroin and onto marijuana, it would be a good thing." He added, “The penalties should be commensurate with the crime,” mentioning a cannabis case he recently heard about where a father turned in his own son not knowing the penalty, which was “ridiculous.” He talked about tobacco and other legal substances being perhaps more dangerous than marijuana. Still, he maintained, "We're starting to win the War on Drugs; this is not a time to let down the bars."

“Jack Herer declared in 1973, ‘The Emperor Wears No Clothes,’ in his book by the same name,” Hanna told Marijuana Moment. “Through the release of the audio I found, we now have definitive proof of the Emperor himself admitting in private that he knew he was naked.”

Herer once told Dale Gieringer of California NORML that he had a friend who worked for the Orange County Republican party. After Nixon retired to San Clemente, the friend had an opportunity to chat with him. Nixon reportedly mused, "I don't understand why marijuana isn't legal by now." Asked, "Why, didn't you refuse to decriminalize it?" Nixon responded, "Yeah, but that was politics. I couldn't do it then. I thought it would be legal by now."

In 2016, Harper’s magazine published an article by Dan Baum that included excerpts from a 1994 interview with Ehrlichman, who was quoted saying that the Nixon administration intentionally misled the public about the danger of drugs to undermine some of its main opponents: Black activists and groups opposed to the Vietnam War.

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said, according to the Harper’s story. The comments were left out of the book Baum subsequently published, Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure. Ehrlichman died in 1999 and Baum in 2020.

In another previously-reported-on White House tape, Nixon strangely observed to his Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman on May 26, 1971, "You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob? What is the matter with them? I suppose it is because most of them are psychiatrists." As revealed by Boston Globe writer Dan Abrams, Nixon had been briefed that morning on the book Marihuana Reconsidered by Jewish psychiatrist Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a Harvard professor. The landmark book "helped launch the contemporary movement to legalize the drug, lending Ivy League credibility to a cause more associated with hippie counterculture than serious medical research," wrote Abrams. 

Grinspoon's son Dr. Peter Grinspoon has carried on his father's work as a cannabis expert who teaches at Harvard Medical School. He has the last word in the Times article on the newly uncovered tapes, lamenting that "the Nixon era policy meant that for years the government mainly funded studies looking into marijuana’s dangers and showed little interest in its medicinal value. That has begun to change as experts have come to see cannabis as a promising tool to treat opioid addiction, side effects from cancer treatments and chronic pain."

“The opportunity cost of the policies of that era,” Grinspoon said, “has been tremendous."

The cost of the 50-plus year War on Drugs to those imprisoned and their families and communities is incalculable. In the case of marijuana, those costs came despite the architect of the WOD knowing pot wasn't so dangerous. We might get rescheduling down to Schedule 3 for cannabis sometime in the future; meanwhile the Last Prisoner Project is pushing for our sitting president to do something meaningful about the estimated 3,000 currently imprisoned for cannabis offenses in their #Countdown4Clemency campaign.

Curiouser and Curiouser Cannabis Politics

If you were in Oregon on Sunday watching the heart-wrenching hour-long 60 Minutes program on 9/11 and the terrible toll it took on the FDNY, you would have seen an ad funded by the National Republican Congressional Committee slamming OR Congresswoman Val Hoyle for her association with the cannabis company La Mota while serving as OR’s labor commissioner. La Mota is under investigation by the FBI and the huge scandal around it lead to the resignation of Oregon’s Secretary of State. 

Hoyle responded to the ad when it first appeared, and a counter ad that aired just after the NRCC one on 60 Minutes featured a firefighter talking about Hoyle’s advocacy for workers. (A second appearance of the NRCC ad on the program went unrebutted.)

Hoyle has apparently been a friend in Congress, tweeting out support  for the cannabis industry when former NFLer and cannabis entrepreneur Ricky Williams visited her office in June. She seems to face scant competition from her “Young Gun” Republican challenger who has now called for a federal investigation into Hoyle and La Mota; still, it’s disturbing that NRCC would attack a Congressperson on this basis, even as presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris now squabble about who is the bigger legalization supporter. 

Harris supported medical marijuana as DA of San Francisco, but was derisive about adult legalization when running for a second term as California's AG. She did a rather complete turnaround when she was elected to the Senate, where she co-sponsored a bill to legalize marijuana at the federal level, and stumped for Biden's plan to reschedule cannabis on the talk show circuit, reiterating that, "No one should be in jail for weed." She's also touted her administration's pardons for low-level cannabis offenses, even as the Last Prisoner Project pushes for clemency for the estimated 3000 current federal cannabis prisoners. 

Trump, meanwhile, continues to call for the death penalty for drug dealers, even after Fox New's Brett Baier tripped him up on that topic over his Alice Johnson pardon. Now, facing a challenger who could get the weed vote, Trump has announced he will vote for marijuana legalization when he casts his ballot in Florida, and he's also embraced rescheduling and banking reform for cannabis businesses. While calling medical marijuana "amazing" he at the same time called for restrictions on where pot can be smoked, saying New York "smells all marijuana-y." It's been reported that he met with at least one cannabis CEO before making his announcement, and some have speculated campaign contributions were involved. He has bashed Harris for prosecuting cannabis crimes in California, although he didn't bring that up at last night's debate debacle.  

Both DonOld and his VP pick J.D. Vance have repeated the much-debunked myth that illicit marijuana can contain fentanyl. In Vance's case, it's particularly troubling, since many studies, including a recent one from Ohio, have shown that marijuana legalization can reduce the use of opioids, and another recent study out of Appalachia found that medical marijuana helps depression, pain and anxiety patients while reducing prescription drug use. Vance and Trump are now repeating strange and unconfirmed reports that illegal Haitian immigrants are eating people's pets in Ohio, perhaps in an attempt to win back the cat lady vote. Both Vance's wife Usha and Harris's families have roots in the Hindu religion, which connects with cannabis. 

Fentanyl is all over the voting map, e.g. in attack ads against Portland, OR Congresswoman Janelle Bynum for supporting Oregon's erstwhile drug decriminalization law, even as a new study reports that increases in drug overdoses can't necessarily be tracked to that law, but rather to the spread of fentanyl. At the debate, Harris pointed out that Trump made phone calls to congressmembers to kill a border control bill that would have helped stem the importation of fentanyl, but he didn't rebut her accusation after being distracted by her assertion that people were leaving his rallies early in boredom, as delegates reportedly did at the RNC. 

Malphine Fogel and her son Marc in happier times

In another bizarre and tragic incident, Trump met with the 95-year-old mother of Butler, PA–born schoolteacher Marc Fogel, who has served three years of a 14-year sentence in Russian for bringing a small amount of medical marijuana into the country, just before the candidate spoke at the rally where a sniper shot at him before he could say Marc's name. The Biden/Harris administration has refused to designate Fogel as "wrongfully detained" as they did with WNBA and US Olympic star Brittney Griner, and Fogel was reportedly devastated when he was left out of the recent hostage swap that freed Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan. 

For a bit of comic relief, Texas House of Representative candidate Sally Duval has tweeted out a campaign ad in which she enjoys some Strawberry Cough and says, "It’s HIGH time for a change. If you agree that we need leaders who will ensure that Texans have access to safe, tested marijuana products, chip in today." And Seth Meyers, picking up on Trump accusing Biden of hunkering down in his basement, predicts upon leaving office Biden will start wearing a man bun and "get super into hydroponics." 

Independent presidential candidate Cornell West has tweeted, "Brothers and sisters, I call on VP Harris to not only fulfill her promise on cannabis legalization but, in the name of mental health and addiction, to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA, and Ibogaine. The War on Drugs has devastated our communities—we must end it, we must end it, expunge records, and offer real second chances. Science and compassion demand it. Let’s support small businesses and home growers while building an economy rooted in truth, justice, and love. It’s time to hold our leaders accountable." It's a similar position to that of Democratic challenger Marianne Williamson, who's now dropped out of the race. Either are possible for write-in or protest votes, although I urge readers to think hard about voting this way if you live in a swing state. 

"Bob Marley: One Love" Tells Rita's Story Too

Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley and Lashana Lynch as Rita in "One Love"

The biopic "Bob Marley: One Love," co-produced by several members of Marley's family, tells his and his wife Rita's story in a moving way seldom seen on film. 

Producers include Rita Marley, their oldest son David "Ziggy" (whose nickname means "little spliff"), and daughter Cedella (a cannabis cookbook author and musician). Stephen Marley, the couple's third child, was the film's music supervisor. Also involved as an executive producer, along with Brad Pitt, was Orly Agai Marley, a music industry executive who is married to Ziggy. 

The film briefly touches on Marley's humble beginnings, and quickly jumps to 1976, when he planned a free "Smile Jamaica" concert to bring together Jamaica's political factions that had seen escalated violence between them. As the film depicts, Rita, Bob, and his manager Don Taylor were shot and wounded in Marley's home two days before the concert. Rita's dreadlocks protected her brain from the bullet, and she recovered from her serious injuries, while Bob sustained minor wounds to his chest and arm, and the concert proceeded. 

Rita, played by Lashana Lynch, is a powerhouse life and musical partner to Bob, even while he "keeps company" elsewhere while she stays home raising his kids, some by other women. She and the other two I-Threes (Judy Mowat and Marcia Griffiths) lended their backing voices to Bob's vision and made it soar. The scene where Rita brings Bob back down to Earth is about the best and truest acting I have ever seen.  

In flashback, it is revealed that Rita introduced Bob to Rastafarianism, and he is shown receiving religious instruction and being initiated into smoking the holy herb. Ganja thereafter is treated nonchalantly, in the music studio or elsewhere, as part of the lifestyle, without comment. 

After the "Smile Jamaica" concert, Bob sends his family to the US to be out of target range, and travels to London. There, after being busted for a small quantity of marijuana, he envisions a bigger sound to his music, along with a bigger mission: to bring peace to and unity to Jamaica and spread the gospel of Rastafari. As the film tells it, he recalls the Rasta holy man teaching him that his name Nesta means messenger while in his London jail cell. 

Rita and the I Threes join him in London and the result is the album "Exodus," which became a worldwide bestseller and brought Reggae music, and its sacrament, to the planet. The album "Kaya" (slang for marijuana) was also produced in London. 

Of course, the music in the film is wonderful; I wish I had caught it in a theatre with a good sound system. I would have liked to have seen (the real) Bob perform in the end, at the second Jamaican concert that ended the film and might have been its crescendo. Instead, we see a soundless montage of Marley performing, dancing in his wild way, and bringing together political leaders onstage. 

I am sure some will criticize "One Love" for overly lionizing Marley, even while showing his flaws, but watching him in the film dying in his 30s from the effects of cancer, it was hard not to see him as a martyr and get swept up in the music, and the message. When he sings "Redemption Song" for Rita and she pronounces him ready, you know that he will die soon. The song appeared on his final album, "Uprising." 

For his role as Bob Marley, British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir immersed himself in Jamaican Patois for over a year. Asked by Gayle King if he smoked weed in preparation for the film, he replied no, but that, "I eat it sometimes." The film is told in flashback, which adds a bit to the confusion in following the plot along with the patois. An end title states that Bob Marley died in 1981, aged 36; Ben-Adir celebrated his 37th birthday during filming.

Rita has kept the memory and the message alive, and recently celebrated her 75th birthday. 

According to IMDB, "Bob Marley: One Love" was rated NC16 in Singapore because of the anti-drug law and media censorship in Singapore. But it's viewable in the US (currently on Amazon Prime). 

Dionysian Tableau at Paris Olympics Shocks Christian Conservatives Who Forget Their Past

Christian conservatives have gone on the attack about protecting their children against a segment during last night's Olympics opening ceremony in Paris depicting what was seen as a Last Supper-like tableau with a Goddess in the center and Dionysus served up on a plate. 

“[The Last Supper] is not my inspiration and that should be pretty obvious," production designer Thomas Jolly said, [in translation]. "There’s Dionysus arriving on a table. Why is he there? First and foremost because he is the god of celebration in Greek mythology and the tableau is called ‘Festivity.’”  

“He is also the god of wine, which is also one of the jewels of France, and the father of Séquana, the goddess of the river Seine. The idea was to depict a big pagan celebration, linked to the gods of Olympus, and thus the Olympics.”

Those who could only see the Last Supper in the tableau are forgetting or were never taught their history (not to mention their herstory): Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and ecstasy, was by some accounts the son of the grain goddess Demeter of the ancient Eleusinian mysteries. Those mysteries saw yearly pilgrimages of the faithful to experience communion with each other via the sacrament kykeon, thought to be a psychedelic potion. 

Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman orator who gave us the enduring maxim, “Let the punishment fit the crime” wrote: 

"For it appears to me that among the many exceptional and divine things your Athens has produced and contributed to human life, nothing is better than those [Eleusinian] mysteries. For by means of them we have transformed from a rough and savage way of life to the state of humanity, and have been civilized.” 

The Last Supper and the Catholic Mass are likely re-enactments of the Mysteries, with participants munching mushrooms (per Joseph Allegro) and nowadays partaking of communion hosts in which the rye was not permitted to go moldy and psychoactive. Dionysus took the sacred out of the Mysteries when debauchery took hold, with wine containing only alcohol and not the more interesting and holy potions the ancients drank. 

"The foundations of the Catholic Church are literally built upon Dionysus," writes Brian Murarescu in his book The Immortality Key. Harkening to The Dionysian Gospel by Dennis McDonald, he relates how Jesus's first miracle as recorded by John, turning water into wine at the Wedding of Cana, equated Jesus with Dionysus as the new God of Ecstasy.  

Ancient wines and beers often contained other psychoactive substances. Picking up on scholar Dorothy Irving's interpretation of the Fractio Panis fresco in the Roman Catacomb of Priscilla as depicting female figures breaking bread together ceremonially (shown), Murarescu concludes, "Before Jesus generations of women brewed the graveyard beers and mixed the graveyard wines in the Indo-European ritual that spread east and west of Stone Age Anatolia, the 'ritual act of communion' that was 'by women for women.' After Jesus there were many women who dominated the house churches and catacombs that defined the faith, offering a safe haven for the old Greek sacrament that needed shelter from the wilderness."

Once men got hold of the sacraments, war and hedonism took hold over from spiritualism and communion, and humankind has never recovered. The Eleusinian Mysteries were systematically targeted by the Roman senate starting in 186 BC. "The idea of the God of Ecstasy obliterating all loyalty to family and country was not welcome in a Roman Empire in the thick of nation building. Similarly the idea of making visionary wine available to the poor folks and women of the 99 percent was just as offensive to the 1 percent of the religious establishment," Muraresku writes.

In The Power of Myth, Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell had this exchange:

MOYERS: Do you ever think that it is this absence of the religious experience of ecstasy, of joy, this denial of transcendence in our society, that has turned so many young people to the use of drugs?


CAMPBELL: Absolutely, that is the way in.


MOYERS: The way in?


CAMPBELL: To an experience.


MOYERS: And religion can do that for you, or art can’t do it?


CAMPBELL: It could, but it is not doing it now. Religions are addressing social problems and ethics instead of the mystical experience.

Modern society demonizes what was once a religious experience: the partaking of psychedelic plants. Communion has now denigrated into a hollow ceremony performed by a cult, the Catholic church, that has a problem with pedophilia. And laws against marijuana and other drugs have sent teenagers trying untested and unregulated substances for the experience they naturally seek. No wonder they’re confused.

It’s time we came to grips with the fact that adolescents will forever demand the kind of rite-of-passage experience that entheogens provide. Instead of offering information and guidance to our youth, we instead try to shelter them from their own history, and natural inclinations, to their own detriment and that of society.

Of Usha, Kamala, and the Hindu Kush

J.D. and Usha Vance at their Hindu wedding. 

Both our Vice President (and now likely Presidential candidate) Kamala Harris and Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of Republican Vice Presidential Candidate JD Vance, have roots in the Hindu religion, which has sacred connections to cannabis. 

"The academic study of Indic religions, and of yoga, has been intimately tied to questions regarding the role of psychoactive substances from an early stage. This is particularly with respect to soma, a sacred beverage utilized within the Vedic tradition," writes Stuart Ray Sarbacker, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Philosophy at Oregon State University, in his paper "Psychoactives and Psychedelics in Yoga: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Culture."

Dr. Sarbacker continues, "The role and nature of the beverage referred to as soma in the Vedic tradition of fire sacrifice (yajña) and its purported psychoactivity has been thoroughly investigated within and outside of Indology. ... Soma is revered as a sacred beverage and as a deity, said to confer visionary experience and immortality upon the brāhmaṇa who ritually consumes it. Soma is identified as amṛta, literally the elixir of 'nondeath,' of immortality, a name resonating through the millennia of later Hindu narrative and discourse. There are various hypotheses as to the botanical identity of soma, some of the leading candidates being ephedra, peganum harmala (Syrian rue), cannabis, poppy, mead or wine, ergot, amanita muscaria (Fly Agaric mushroom), psilocybe cubensis (Magic Mushroom), and an ayahuasca analog."

Chris Bennett, Lynn Osburn & Judy Osburn write in their book Green Gold The Tree of Life: Marijuana in Magic & Religion, "Descriptions of haoma, or soma, list it as yellow or gold-like in color, the color of ripe cannabis in the Middle East and India. Source material on the subject also tells us that 'the intoxicating juice of the haoma herb found on their mountain slopes' grew in the Hindu Kush mountains and valleys, a place that is still famed for its powerful ganja."

Harris (top left) wearing a sari. 

"Cannabis use is a part of mainstream Hindu practice, prevalent during Mahāśivarātri, Durgā Pūjā, and other festivals [including Diwali] in the consumption of bhaṅgā, a mixture of cannabis, milk, and spices, which augments the festival spirit," writes Sarbacker. "Routine cannabis use is extensive among renouncer (sādhu and sādhvī) communities in India as a sacramental substance and a social glue. Some Sādhus and Sādhvīs are said to follow, per Bevilacqua, the so-called 'chillumchai' diet—combining the mildly psychedelic effect of Indian cannabis with the stimulation of tea with sugar and spices. One study found that among a subset of Sādhus present at the Paśupatināth temple in Nepal, virtually all used cannabis regularly, with a high percentage reporting its use as a support for meditation."

Sarbacker writes that the terminology of cannabis in Hindu tradition is "exclusively feminine in gender" and includes a scope of conceptualizations, including as “the root of Śiva” (śivamūla), “conquerer” (vijayā), “breaker [of disease]” (bhaṅginī), “intoxicator” (gañjā), “perfected” (siddhā), and “root of perfection” (siddhamūlikā), as well as the soma-like appellation of “sweet nectar” (madhudravā)."

Perhaps one of these Hindu women now prominent in US politics will somehow bring us back to the spiritual teachings of the soma, as well as the bhangini and ganja, and the vijaya. According to the LA Times. Shyamala Gopalan (Kamala's mother) was a Tamil Brahmin, part of priest class. Usha's mother is named for the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, also known as Kamala.

Hindu groups sought an apology from Harris's niece in 2020 for tweeting out an image of her aunt as the Hindu goddess Durga in her destroyer mode defeating Trump. The tweet said, "I am actually speechless, other than to say the first day of Navaratri was LIT." Navaratri, the festival of Durga, will be celebrated this year from October 3 - 12, in time for the election, and a new kind of October Surprise?

California State Fair Allows Cannabis Sales and Consumption For the First Time

California took the historic step of allowing cannabis sales and consumption at its State Fair in Sacramento over the weekend. The historic move drew a large crowd of enthusiasts and curious folks from across California for the opening weekend, with opportunities to sample and enjoy award-winning cannabis strains and products throughout the month. 

Embarc, the fair’s partner on the project, is hosting a dispensary and 30,000-square-foot outdoor consumption lounge space at Cal Expo, allowing fair-goers who are 21 and older to buy and try award-winning cannabis. The company operates several cannabis retailers in California and has hosted cannabis consumption spaces at festivals like Outside Lands in San Francisco. 

This is the third year the Fair has featured a cannabis exhibit and competition, but the first year that sales and consumption are allowed. This year, outside the CBD-only cannabis exhibit hall at the Fair is a "cannabis oasis," where cannabis flower and products can be purchased, and drinks and edibles can be consumed. At one end of the "oasis" fair-goers can purchase cannabis products from Embarc or, at the other end, from a group of cannabis equity companies from across the state (shown). Customers can then walk down a path to the consumption space and enjoy their purchases with others inside a huge tent. Shade, misters, and fans provide relief from the heat in both spaces, and the exhibit space is air-conditioned. 

Did Trump Plan to Cheat on A Pre-Debate Drug Test?

Gotta admit Trump is something of an evil genius: his ploy to call for a mutual workplace employment drug test before Thursday's Presidential Debacle (aka Debate) may well have lead to Biden trying to perform without Jacking Up, with disastrous results for the Democrats, and the country. 

In his usual Teflonic and ironic fashion, The Donald managed to skirt the issue of the long list of performance-and-other drugs given out like candy at his White House, and the persistent accusations that he's the one on drugs. That he offered to take such a test himself means nothing, considering that he has no compunction about cheating on elections, his wives, and almost everything else. The fact that his plan was backed by former White House doctor Ronny (as in Reagan) Jackson (whose name Trump got wrong while bragging about passing the cognitive tests he administered), makes me wonder if his dastardly plan was to have Dr. Johnson-Jackson administer the tests, duly bribed to provide a negative result for Trump. 

Leading up to the debate, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow laughed heartily at Chis Hayes's pronouncement that, "If performance drugs make you a better debater and president, I'm all for them." My twitter feed ruminated a bit on that, pointing out that it's "too bad the performance enhancers Trump is on make him even more delusional, narcissistic and evil." 

Then Jon Stewart, who appeared live post-debate, nailed the thought as only he can (because, Great Heads Think Alike):