Happy Cinco de Mayo or Today’s Marijuana History Lesson
This year we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the La Guardia Committee report on “The Marihuana Problem in the City of New York.” To mark this anniversary, the Drug Policy Alliance and the New York Academy of Medicine, which participated in the original report, held a conference on the Past, Present and Future of Marijuana Policies in New York . My day job kept me from attending; anyone who did please skip to the end of this post and comment on what occurred.
As many readers of this blog post probably know, the La Guardia Report, released during the “Reefer Madness” period of marijuana rhetoric, came to the positive but cautious conclusion that “that the sociological, psychological, and medical ills commonly attributed to marihuana have been found to be exaggerated insofar as the City of New York is concerned.” The research which forms the basis of the study was conducted with methodological care; my personal highlight was the use of a Jack Benny radio program to test sense of humor under the influence of marijuana. The sociological and medical findings on the effect/non-effect of marijuana are still valid today, and the report concludes by noting and reminding its readers that marijuana had medical uses as an exit drug.
According to Hallmark, the traditional gift for a 40th anniversary is a ruby. But the obvious gift for this anniversary is reform of New York marijuana laws or at least passage of a medical marijuana bill.