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Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
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OCR for page R1
An Analysis of
Marijuana Policy
Comminee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior
Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
National Research Council
National Academy Press
Washington, D.C. 1982
OCR for page R2
NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report
was approved by the Governing Board of the National Re-
search Council, whose members are drawn from the coun-
cils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National
Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
The members of the committee responsible for the report
were chosen for their special competences and with regard
for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than
the authors according to procedures approved by a Report
Review Committee consisting of members of the National
Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering,
and the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was established by the
National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the
broad community of science and technology with the
Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and of advis-
ing the federal government. The Council operates in
accordance with general policies determined by the Acad-
emy under the authority of its congressional charter of
1863, which establishes the Academy as a private, non-
profit, self-governing membership corporation. The Coun-
cil has become the principal operating agency of both
the National Academy of Sciences and the National Acad-
emy of Engineering in the conduct of their services to
the government, the public, and the scientific and engi-
neering communities. It is administered jointly by both
Academies and the Institute of Medicine. The National
Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine
were established in 1964 and 1970, respectively, under
the charter of the National Academy of Sciences.
Available from:
Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and
Education
National Research Council
2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20418
Printed in the United States of America
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NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCI L
2101 C~SrrrUnOt' AVIEt4UE - ~UNC~J, D. C. 2~;116
OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN
Dr. William Pollin, Director
National Institute on Drug Abuse
Parklawn Building
Room 10-05
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20857
Dear Dr. Pollin:
June 21, 1982
I transmit, herewith, a report of the National Research
Council's Committee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior:
"An Analysis of Marijuana Policy prepared at the request of
the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The Committee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior,
composed of 18 experts in the several relevant disciplines,
has weighed carefully the available data regarding the costs,
risks, and benefits of the major policy alternatives regard-
ing the control of marijuana use and supply. The Committee
is clear in pointing to the deficiencies of this body of
evidence and cautions about the hazards of formulating policy
recommendations based solely or in part thereon. In this
regard, I call your attention to the following statement by
Louis Lasagna and Gardner Lindzey contained in the Preface
to the report:
The Committee wishes to make clear what it regards
as the limits of this report for the selection of
policy alternatives. Scientific judgment can
estimate the prevalence of different kinds of use,
risks to health, economic costs, and the like
under current policies and try to project such
estimates for new policies. It can come to some
conclusions based on those estimates. But selection
of an alternative is always a value-governed choice,
which can ultimately be made only by the political
process.
This caveat notwithstanding, the Committee has derived
from its examination of the scientific data a conclusion about
the major policy choices facing the nation with respect to
ME NATIONAL RESEWN COUNCIL IS WE ~ INCIP~ OPE"=C MEND ~ ME NA~" AC - Ed ~ FENCES ~ ME NYLONS FEW ~ EMCEED
TO SERVE DEWED ~ HER OPENS.
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Dr. William Pollin
June 21, 1982
Page Two
marijuana: complete prohibition, prohibition of supply
only, and regulatory approaches. Specifically, the
Committee concurs with the judgment of the National
Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, rendered in
1971, that a policy of prohibition of supply only is
preferable to a policy of complete prohibition of supply
and use.
What must be understood by the public, the media,
and all who read the Committee's report is that its
decision to endorse a policy change was not fashioned
from scientific information--old or new--alone. Rather
it was the analysis of a combination of factors which
affect policy decisions, including the cost and
efficacy of enforcement practices. \talues were neces-
sarily involved in balancing these factors and there are
those within the membership and governing bodies of the
Academies and the National Research Council who might
not have come to the same policy conclusions, after
reviewing the same data.
My own view is that the data available to the Committee
were insufficient to justify on scientific-or analytical
grounds changes in current policies dealing with the use
of marijuana. In this respect I am concerned that the
Committee may have gone beyond its charge in stating a
judgment so value-laden, that it should have been left
to the political process.
I have one further concern that cannot go unaddressed.
I fear that this report, coming as it does from a well-
known and well-respected scientific organization, will be
misunderstood by the media and the public to imply that
new scientific data are suddenly available that justify
changes in public attitudes on the use of marijuana.
This would be unfortunate at a time when daily use trends
by high school students are down significantly. AS the
Committee's discussion of marijuana's behavioral and
health-related effects clearly demonstrates, there is no
new scientific information exonerating marijuana. In fact,
the review by our Institute of Medicine, published a few
months ago, reevaluated existing scientific evidence and
concluded, as have others, that marijuana is a harmful
drug whose use justifies serious national concern.
.
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Dr. William Pollin
June 21, 1982
Page Three
I wish to remind you that this is a committee report;
the only position that can be inferred with respect to
the National Research Council on the issue of marijuana
policy is that the National Research Council is satisfied
that the Committee was competent to examine the issue and
diligent in carrying out its task. Despite my personal
disagreement, I believe that the Committee has performed
a useful service by illuminating many of the complex issue
surrounding this highly controversial subject.
Yours sincerely,
Act.
Frank Press
Chairman
s
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COMMITTEE ON SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND HABITUAL BEHAVIOR
LOUIS LASAGNA (Chair), Department of Pharmacology and
Toxicology, University of Rochester School of
Medicine and Dentistry
HOWARD S. BECKER, Department of Sociology, Northwestern
University
PETER DEWS, Department of Psychiatry and Psychobiology,
Harvard University
JOHN L. FALK, Department of Psychology, Rutgers
University
DANIEL X. FREEDMAN, Department of Psychiatry, University
of Chicago
JEROME H. JAFFE, Veterans Administration Hospital,
Newington, Connecticut , and University of Connecticut
School of Medicine, Farmington, Connecticut
DENISE KANDEL, Department of Psychiatry and School of
Public Health, Columbia University, and New York
State Psychiatric Institute
JOHN KAPLAN, Stanford University School of Law
GARDNER LINDZEY (past chair), Center for Advanced Study
in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California
GERALD McCLEARN, College of Human Development,
Pennsylvania State University
CHARLES P. O'BRIEN, Veterans Administration Hospital,
Philadelphia, and Department of Psychiatry,
University of Pennsylvania
JUDITH RODIN, Department of Psychology, Yale University
STANLEY SCHACHTER, Department of Psychology, Columbia
University
THOMAS C. SCHELLING, John F. Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University
RICHARD L. SOLOMON, Department of Psychology, University
of Pennsylvania
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FRANK STANTON, New York (formerly, president, Columbia
Broadcasting System)
ALBERT STUNKARD, Department of Psychiatry, University of
Pennsylvania
RICHARD F. THOMPSON, Department of Psychology, Stanford
University
PETER K. LEVISON, Study Director
DEAN R. GERSTEIN, Senior Research Associate
DEBORAH R. MALOFF, Research Associate
MARIE A. CLARK, Administrative Secretary
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CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
THE DANGERS OF MARIJUANA
OVERVIEW OF CURRENT MARIJUANA POLICIES
A REVIEW OF The REPORT OF TEE NATIONAL
COMMISSION ON MARIJUANA AND DRUG ABUSE
THE USE OF MARIJUANA: COMPARING COMPLETE
AND PARTIAL PROHIBITION
Effects of Partial Prohibition
Costs of Prohibition of Use
Public Attitudes Toward Partial
Prohibition
THE SUPPLY OF MARIJUANA: COMPARING PROHIBITED
AND REGULATED MARRETS
Costs of Prohibition of Supply
Costs of Regulating Supply
Regulatory Systems: Same Concrete Aspects
CONCLUSIONS
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR RESEARCH
Health and Behavior
Drug Markets
Effects on Use
REFERENCES
APPENDIX: SUMMARY OF MARIJUANA AND HEALTH
ED
1
3
6
9
11
~2
14
16
17
18
20
24
29
30
30
31
31
33
36
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PREFACE
In 1978 the Committee on Substance Abuse and Habitual
Behavior began a study of marijuana policy at the re-
que~t and with the support of the Nationn1 Institute on
Drug Abuse. Sharp increases in marijuana use along with
suggestions for reform of existing marijuana lawn from
scientists and policy makers prompted a renewed look at
those laws. In addition, the National Commission on
Marijuana and Drug Abuse, in its 1973 final report, Drug
Use in America: Problem in Perspective, had recommended
,
that a follow-up commission be appointed to review pos-
sible changes in the situation four years later. That
recommendation was not implemented, so the Committee
took as a framework for its tank the assessment that the
Commission recommended, especially the assessment of new
evidence regarding the effects of recent changes in
state marijuana policies.
The Committee conducted its study with awareness of
the intensity of past controversies about marijuana use
in U.S. society. In the four years since the Committee
began its work, there has been an increase in visible
concern among many parents about marijuana use among
youth, its potential risks to the health of children,
and the possibility that heavy use by some young people
may seriously threaten their education. Parents who
have experienced problems with their own children, or
observed those of others, have organized to make mari-
juana policies a major item on current political agendas.
In comparison with the situation at the inception of
this study, there is today greater rancor in public
discussion, press reports, legislative hearings, and
policy-oriented technical meetings related to marijuana
use.
xi
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xii
This is the context in which the Committee completed
its review of the evidence and arguments of earlier
studies and weighed the significance of subsequent evi-
dence for the major policy alternatives. Every policy
has potentially good and potentially bad effects, and
policy choices involve difficult comparisons of such
effects. It is important to recognize that to allow the
inertia developed by existing policies to prevent change
is itself a choice.
The Committee is aware that analyzing a topic that is
the subject of heated social debate has its hazards.
Many of those participating in the marijuana debate have
already selected what they take to be the admissible
terms of the discussion and look with disfavor on any-
one's insistence on a wider set of considerations. For
example, some would settle the issue on physiological
grounds alone: whether cannabis products, in the dose
ranges customarily used by most people, cause tissue
damages Defenders of marijuana use may seize on the
ambiguity or absence of evidence for such damage and
ignore any other effects on education or safety; those
opposed to marijuana use may emphasize the possibility
of chronic disease that is suggested by some laboratory
findings and ignore the social, political, and economic
costs of fighting a well-established custom.
This report does not review and analyze every con-
ceivable policy nuance or option. It addressee the
major choices--both because these families of alterna-
tive policies subsume many variants and because the
choice among these major options must be discussed
before specific, perhaps new, policy instruments can be
designed.
The Committee wishes to make clear what it regards as
the limits of this report for the selection of policy
alteratives. Scientific Judgment can estimate the prev-
alence of different kinds of use, risks to health, eco-
nomic costs, and the like under current policies and can
try to project such estimates for new policies. It can
come to some conclusions based on those estimates. But
selection of an alternative is always a value-governed
choice, which can ultimately be made only by the politi-
cal process. The role of scientific evidence in this
process is not inconsiderable, even though, at times,
the strongest evidence may be pushed aside and the wild-
eat speculation prevail. But the weight of the evidence
is only one factor in the process of policy formation;
ultimately, that process involves value choices.
OCR for page R13
xiii
In completing its report, the Committee has benefited
from many people in formulating, revising, and updating
the analyses and data. A very early version of this
report was discussed at the Com~ittee's annual confer-
ence in 1979, and subsequent versions benefited from
comments by staff of the National Institute on Drug
Abuse and of the National Research Council. The final
draft received close and constructive attention by memo
bers of the National Research Council's Commission on
Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, the In~ti-
tute of Medicine, and the Report Review Committee of the
National Academy of Sciences.
We have also maintained a close liaison with the Staff
and members of the Institute of Medicine's Committee to
Study the Health-Related Effects of Cannabis and Its
Derivatives, on which three members of our Committee
also served, and whose recently published report,
MariJuana and Health, significantly contributed to our
work.
Two former Committee members, Troy Duster and Michael
Agar, assisted in the early preparation of the report.
At later stages we were very ably assisted by the staff
of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and
Education, in particular David Goalin, executive direc-
tor, and Eugenic Grohman, associate director for reports.
Without their help, it in doubtful that we could have
completed this task. Finally, we are indebted to the
staff sod members of the Committee, for their diligence,
patience, and commitment to a difficult assignment.
Louis Lasagna, Chair
Gardner Lindsey, Chair, 1977-1980
Committee on Substance Abuse and
Habitual Behavior
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