The National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse was created by Public Law 91-513 to study marijuana abuse in the United States. While the Controlled Substances Act was being drafted in a House committee in 1970, Assistant Secretary of Health Roger O. Egeberg had recommended that marijuana temporarily be placed in Schedule I, the most restictive category of drugs, pending the Commission's report. On March 22, 1972, the Commission's chairman, Raymond P. Shafer, presented a report to Congress and the public entitled "Marihuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding," which favored ending marijuana prohibition and adopting other methods to discourage use.

Specifically, the Commission recommended "a social control policy seeking to discourage marihuana use, while concentrating primarily on the prevention of heavy and very heavy use." The report noted that society can provide incentives for certain behavior without prosecuting the unwilling, citing the example that "the family unit and the institution of marriage are preferred means of group-living and child-rearing in our society. As a society, we are not neutral. We officially encourage matrimony by giving married couples favorable tax treatment; but we do not compel people to get married."

The Commission recommended decriminalization of simple possession, finding:

^*he criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use. It implies an overwhelming indictment of the behavior which we believe is not appropriate. The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only 'with the greatest reluctance.

The Commission found that the constitutionality of marijuana prohibition was suspect, and that the executive and legislative branches had a responsibility to obey the Constitution, even in the absence of a court ruling to do so:

While the judiciary is the governmental institution most directly concerned with the protection of individual liberties, all policy-makers have a responsibility to consider our constitutional heritage when framing public policy. Regardless of whether or not the courts would overturn a prohibition of possession of marihuana for personal use in the home, we are necessarily influenced by the high place traditionally occupied by the value of privacy in our constitutional scheme.

The Commission also recommended that the distinctions between licit and illicit drugs be dropped, finding that "the use of drugs for pleasure or other non-medical purposes is not inherently irresponsible; alcohol is widely used as an acceptable part of social activities"^*.

The Richard Nixon administration did not implement the study's recommendations. However, the report has frequently been cited by individuals supporting cannabis rescheduling in the United States.

Reference

• Marihuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding, Commissioned by President Richard M. Nixon, March, 1972.

Cannabis legal reform