ustxtxb_obs_1971_11_19_50_00015-00000_000.pdf

I? t DISTRZIVIORS W11OISSAL1 Disnneviroas 04935 i 911’45 PArelit5 Po rmy CANDIE5 COW/VW-1 COCtlf 8i4aa7E3.4705-INCEN3’8 . MAW P/471PARWIIIIII sofa igRicliORIE5 f Og 9/9LEPla I ia -pioargrx5 commi55TON BOINt -99 OVM NIGHT f24 .1-1.Vb -RY All 0 Vett ‘TEVAS 6128 1//G-Z-190 ve yap 5ron/ , I-EX/75 7/3 /52-8-7 732 SUPER NW SWOP 1\(1 W-Ra 1071t -IfiT,Pg I 795 Algri -Rf95W9 Rn01 -14/1/115 al WO GAGE cgaert Div 6.C. rosreo if/TlIYIRN r19/957 -filig gifier ,O/ J95 fA/P/11 46P1/1H PgAirf gaaaw TWO GDG/91.10N9 /VD.2 /II D. .18/4/ 6/ Z8 i/142,9 ,&-Pay41/vy AleAra Ace Neet U oj H H OUST-0AI TE7123 Dope and tobacco separate but equal By James Ridgeway Washington, D.C. Nixon says he doesn’t care what the commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse finds out about grass because he won’t permit it to be sold legally. But the commission drags along in its hearings anyway, collecting information from a variety of professors, police and doctors. The National District Attorneys Association, for instance, wants stiffer penalties. Ed Reinecke, lieutenant governor of California, was vehemently opposed to legalization. So were Mathew O’Conner, president of the International Narcotics Enforcement Officers Assn.; Alfred Nelder, chief of the San Francisco police, and Rev. Robert Speltx, the fundamentalist evangelist. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and Amorphia both argued for legalization, as did a long list of professors with books out on the subject. Ramsey Clark was supposed to testify for grass, but he never showed up. There were no commercial interests in evidence at the commission hearings. The most interesting aspect of the campaign to legalize or widen the grass trade is the role of the cigarette industry. Hard Tunes For years the tobacco industry was regarded as a sort of underground lobby for grass, variously rumored to have vast fields of the stuff in Mexico or Puerto Rico, meanwhile secretly machinating for dominance of the trade by securing patents to Acapulco Gold and Panama Red. In 1968 one trade paper ran a story, headlined “Needs No Ice” describing an unbelievable new product combining tobacco and marijuana. Recently the rumors circulated again when Time reported an unnamed company was experimenting with grass in Puerto Rico and was considering selling marijuana THE TOBACCO industry formally denies any interest in grass. “Rumors about the cigarette industry’s involvement with marijuana are as persistent as they are false,” says the Tobacco Institute, the industry trade group. “Because both tobacco and marijuana are so commonly used in cigarette form, these rumors are plausible lies which appeal to people who have a strong wish to believe them, either because they are for marijuana or anti-tobacco or both.” The presidents of every major tobacco company disclaimed involvement. In a typical statement, Robert B. Walker, chairman of American Brands, formally American Tobacco, declared, “We are a responsible corporate citizen and, as such, American Brands has no interest whatsoever in any illegal products, including marijuana.” Still the rumors persist. Some of them even come from the federal government. Officials at the Interagency Council on Smoking and Health say that cigarette companies obviously are angling in the grass market. As evidence they point to a new rolling maching introduced by Brown & Williamson. And while it is hard to believe any tobacco companies actually would bother to grow fields of grass or take out patents \(none of those stories November 19, 1971 15