Marijuana Is Still Illegal

After six months of preparation, Lawyer Joseph Oteri began in September the most thoroughgoing legal attack on antimarijuana laws ever made. In seeking to have Massachusetts' marijuana statutes declared unconstitutional, Oteri and ten expert witnesses from the U.S.

and abroad raised every conceivable medical, moral and legal argument against restriction of the drug. The state, with eight experts of its own, waged an equally impressive counteroffensive. The stage was a pretrial hearing for two college dropouts accused of possession of the drug with intent to sell. Last week, after consideration of the case for three months, Superior Court Chief Justice G. Joseph Tauro upheld the laws. In a 31 -page opinion that even pot lovers would have to admire for restraint and thoughtfulness, Judge Tauro carefully explained his conclusions.

"It is my opinion," he wrote, "based on the evidence presented at this hearing, that marijuana is a harmful and dangerous drug." In fact, "as far as I can ascertain, its only purpose is the induction of a state of intoxication or euphoria. The drug has a great attraction for young men and women of college age or less during their formative years, when they should be gaining the education and experiences upon which to build their future lives. The use of the drug allows them to avoid the resolution of their underlying problems rather than to confront them realistically. While marijuana is not physically addictive in the sense that heroin is, it can cause psychological dependence." Moreover, "although no definitive link of efficient causality can be demonstrated with scientific exactness at present, the coincidence between addiction to 'hard' narcotics, crime and promiscuity is too great to be passed off as merely accidental."

Insidious Compensation. Having satisfied himself as to pot's dangers, Judge Tauro went on to find that the penalties provided "are not unconstitutional as being cruel and unusual." This, he thought, was particularly true of the penalties that are provided for pushers. As for the alleged similarity between alcohol and marijuana, the judge was not persuaded. While alcohol is an intoxicant, it is also a relaxant, he said; marijuana is used only to intoxicate--a judgment with which some users would disagree.

He concluded by noting that "unfortunately, many marijuana users do not have the same apprehension or fear concerning its use as they do of the physically addictive drugs. This, I feel, is one of the real dangers which permeates the problem. Marijuana is likely to be used, at least initially, as a lark, as an adventure without fear of serious consequences. Thus, the first and apparently innocuous step may be taken in a succession of others possibly leading to drastic results.

"Its users may not be driven to its repeated use by a physical craving, but they may come to resort to it habitually in order to compensate for real or imagined inadequacies or to avoid real or imagined problems. This pernicious and insidious form of addiction is sometimes the first step in the direction of the more potent or physically addictive drugs. Its use is not so much a symbol of dissent in order to effectuate changes in our social system, but rather a manifestation of a selfish withdrawal from society."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.