ustxtxb_obs_1968_12_27_50_00013-00000_000.pdf

LUXURY AT LOW COST IN HOUST N, TEXAS Corner Prairies and San Jacinto r.K: ::…, SINGLE RATES From. $.4. COMPLETELY AIR CONDITIONED CENTRAL DOWNTOWN LOCATION SPECIAL FAMILY RATES The SAM HOUSTON HOTEL J. S. Mickelson, President Manager . I cotics Education, a nonprofit educational organization supported by Texas churches and individuals, marijuana is not properly a narcotic, it is a hallucinogen.’ According to the AMA’s Council on Mental Health, marijuana is “a dangerous drug.” 5 Dangerous drugs are regulated at law but not as severely as narcotics. Marijuana is variously condemned because it causes or can cause intoxication, hallucinations, disorientation, confusion, hilarity, carelessness, euphoria, impairment of judgment and memory, irritability, traffic accidents, violence, drop-outs, psychological dependence, anti-social attitudes, and a loosening of sexual inhibitions. Dr. Donald B. Louria, president of the New York State Council on Drug Addiction, says, “For an unstable personality, marijuana in virtually any dose can cause deterioration and have a deleterious effect on that personality.” Yet all these effects or potential consequences, without exception, are also caused by alcohol. A publication of the “AMA Drug Abuse Information Program” sets up a canned radio discussion between a doctor and an interviewer. The AMA has the doctor contend that “As normally used in adult society, alcohol’ serves a social function,” but tht only likely outcome of smoking grass is “intoxication.” The doctor is reduced, even in this canned script, to contending: “… [A] s normally used by the vast majority of people, alcohol is not employed as an intoxicant … [il]s ordinarily used, marijuana is an out and out intoxicant.” A study submitted to the California legislature by the University of California, under a covering letter from the college president, said most marijuana in the US is less harmful to users than alcohol. The AMA admits alcohol causes physical sicknesses, including brain damage, while there’s no evidence that pot does. In the current issue of Science, a study of marijuana calls it a “relatively mild intoxicant with minor, real, short-lived effects.” 8 the suspended sentence law are not available to anyone convicted of any offense under the act. Any adult who “hires, employs, or uses” anyone under 19 in selling or giving away marijuana \(or the other than five years; for a second offense, the punishment is death or not less than ten years. Selling pot is subject to not less than five years, first offense, or ten years, second offense.? These penalties, applied to marijuana, are absurd, yet they are the law. Candy Barr, the stripper, was given 15 years by a Dallas jury when some marijuana was found on her person. She served three years and four months in a state prison before being permitted to return to her profession. 8 A Dallas jury sentenced a 41year-old man to 30 years in prison in 1966 because several marijuana cigarettes were found in his home. He had tried to dispose of the grass in his bathroom but was forcibly prevented from doing it. 8 The same year a Dallas policeman, spotting a car illegally parked, approached and saw the owner take a cigarette from his sock and try to eat it. Marijuana: 30 years.” Miguel Flores, 44, tried to hide three cigarettes of marijuana in his hand when he was arrested by the Travis county sheriff. For possessing them, he was sentenced to ten years.” Frank Lopez of San Angelo, caught with enough marijuana for 100 cigarettes got seven years in prison.” Antonio Sanchez, 21, of Pharr, got three and a half years for pos session and sale.” Ismael Martinez, 42, Corpus Christi, got twelve years for the same offense.” A school librarian in LaMarque, charged with her husband of having seven pounds of grass in her home and car, was given three years.” For having six marijuana cigarettes, Ernest Fontenot, 26, of Dallas, was sentenced to ten former undercover agent for the Dallas police, who had made “buys” and given information to the police about the sellers, was sentenced to five years in prison after police testified they found two marijuana cigarettes in his car. He said he was framed. 17 There has been unsubstantiated talk for years that Candy Barr might have been an innocent victim of circumstances, but that if so, she was hardly in a position to defend herself forcefully because of certain other considerations. I have in distant memory the picture of a little newspaper clipping telling that a Mexican-American was sentenced to 99 years for possession of marijuana. In 1962, for a fact, 8.05 grams of marijuana were found at the home of Jesse Trevino in Plainview, and he was sentenced to 90 years in prison-90 years for possessing enough marijuana to make about seven cigarettes! The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the conviction, denying that it was unduly severe. Police have raided three dormitories December 27, 1968 13 Marijuana is included in the list of substances covered by the Texas law against narcotics, but this list appears to intend to regulate only physically addicting drugs. It includes a specification of “addiction-forming or addiction sustaining liability” as an attribute of some of the substances prohibited. This law prohibits selling, giving or having marijuana, just as though it were in the same category as cocaine, heroin, codeine, morphine and opiates. Violators of any provision of the law are subject to from two years to life in the penitentiary. The punishment for a second offense is not less than ten years. The benefits of Jlealth and Zon y a Our fAiiench /2ncho and Sara