Drug WarRant

[DdC]

Former Pa. Gov. Raymond Shafer Dies By Daniel Lovering
CN Source: Associated Press December 12, 2006 Pittsburgh, PA 

Raymond P. Shafer, a Republican who transformed the mechanics of Pennsylvania's government but couldn't solve its huge financial woes as governor from 1967 to 1971, died Tuesday, a hospital spokesman said. He was 89. Duane Koller, a spokesman at Meadville Medical Center, confirmed the death.

Shafer, who later led a federal commission that urged the decriminalization of marijuana, was the last governor of Pennsylvania limited to a single term.

As its chief executive, he led an overhaul of the state constitution that had grown outdated, winning several constitutional changes from the Republican-controlled Legislature and voters.

But by the time Shafer's term ended, the state's finances were in shambles, partly because of massive spending increases he pushed through. It was estimated that by the time Shafer left office, Pennsylvania was spending $2 million more per day than it brought in.

Spending grew as the state government began giving more to education and public assistance. Under his watch, basic education funding increased by 71 percent, higher education by 47 percent and public assistance by 187 percent, according to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

To try to bridge the gap, many state taxes increased. The sales tax went from 5 percent to 6 percent in 1968, the highest in the nation at the time; the cigarette tax was raised; and numerous business taxes went up.

Shafer's popularity sank in 1969 when he proposed a state income tax, an idea so disliked that Shafer was once hung in effigy by 250 people in Boston, Pa., who said they were holding a "second Boston Tea Party." Shafer said he needed the tax to finance a 25 percent increase in the state budget to pay for education and welfare, but he was met with hostility when he tried to sell the idea at town meetings.

The income tax proposal cost Shafer's lieutenant governor, Raymond J. Broderick, the 1970 gubernatorial election and helped propel Democrats to control the governor's office and both houses in the General Assembly. The tax was enacted soon after by the new governor, Milton J. Shapp.

Shafer also oversaw big changes to the state constitution and how the administration functioned.

Among other things, the changes enacted during his term included extending the term-limit for governor to two four-year terms; making General Assembly sessions last two years; allowing audits of the state's finances; and creating a unified state judicial system.

He also signed legislation to create the Department of Environmental Resources, which oversaw environmental programs, state park management and mining regulation, and a law that consolidated four separate agencies into the new Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

Shafer had to call out the National Guard in 1967 to try to halt violence during a bitter strike by 15,000 steel-hauling truck drivers. The strike paralyzed the steel industry for nearly two months as thousands of steelworkers were laid off because shipping was disrupted.

The drivers, who were independent contractors, wanted higher payments for deliveries and to be paid for their time spent waiting at steel mills. Shafer helped broker a deal that ended the strike, which was marked by firebombs, rifle fire and fights.

Shafer's administration was embarassed in early 1968 when the state commissioner for the blind fabricated a story that six college students were blinded by the sun after taking LSD. Shafer at first said he was convinced the report was true, but held a news conference the next say to announce that it was a hoax.

Shafer reluctantly signed legislation in 1970 that made Pennsylvania the first state in the nation to permit its public employees to join unions and strike. He also oversaw the enactment of the Corrupt Organizations Act, which sought to keep organized crime out of Pennsylvania businesses.

After serving in the Navy during World War II, Shafer went into law practice and was elected as Crawford County District Attorney - a position he held from 1948 to 1956. He won a 1958 state senate election and became lieutenant governor under William W. Scranton in 1963.

Shafer won the 1966 gubernatorial election by defeating Shapp, a Philadelphian who made millions in the cable TV industry, by more than 240,000 votes.

President Nixon appointed Shafer chair of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse in 1971, around the time Shafer was named chairman and chief executive officer of Teleprompter Corp.

The Shafer Commission, as it was known, in 1972 recommended that the state and federal governments decriminalize the personal use of marijuana, but continue to declare it an illegal substance.

"We unanimously agree that marijuana use is not a desirable behavior, and we agree that society should discourage its use," Shafer said in announcing the panel's results. "Nevertheless, we feel that placed in proper perspective with other social problems, citizens should not be criminalized or jailed merely for private possession or use."

Nixon, who apppointed nine of the 13 commission members, rejected the report, saying he would not follow any recommendation to legalize marijuana.

Shafer was a close ally of Nelson Rockefeller and served as counselor to him when he was vice president.

Raymond Philip Shafer, the youngest of five children, was born in 1917 in New Castle. The family moved to Meadville in 1933 when his father, a minister, was appointed pastor of First Christian Church.

Shafer was a high school valedictorian, got his political science degree at Allegheny College and earned a law degree at Yale.

Following law school, Shafer served in the Navy from 1942 to 1945, where he received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star while serving as a P.T. boat captain and in intelligence.

Shafer, a gifted basketball and soccer player, met his wife, Jane, at Allegheny College.

He was elected to the college's board of trustees and served as the school's president from 1985 to 1986.

Associated Press writer Jonathan Poet in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Shafer Commission

CannabisNews -- Cannabis Archives

National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse
The Ford Administration

President Nixon appointed Ray Shafer Chair of this National Commission in 1971, and its findings were released in several stages. The first report from the fall of 1972 was Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding, issued both as a government report and a mass market Signet New American Library paperback. The second report from March, 1973 was Drug Use in America: Problem in Perspective. The findings of the Commission were controversial from the beginning, for they attacked the "hodge-podge" of U.S. drug laws, challenged exaggerated myths about marijuana's dangers , and recommended decriminalization of marijuana use. The Administration virtually ignored the report, and in fact, stepped up the "War on Drugs" at all levels. However, the insights of the Report remain widely acclaimed.

Many praised the courage of Ray Shafer in maintaining the Commission's objectivity and neutrality under enormous political pressure, as in the editorial Findings of Fact published in the Meadville Tribune on March 25, 1972. Ray Shafer continued to promote the Commission's report and speak on drug issues for several years after the report's release.

Additional Resources (scroll down)

The Shafer Commission Report on marijuana is frequently cited on the web, particularly by groups urging reform of current drug legislation or scholars reciting the history of governmental drug studies. The links listed below represent only a few examples of Shafer web citation.


Shafer appears in this group of Philadelphia Lions with Yale classmate Gerald Ford (far left).

The Official Story: Debunking "Gutter Science"
The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer Chapter 15

Dr. Heath/Tulane Study, 1974 (The Ford Administration)
The Hype: Brain Damage and Dead Monkeys (excerpted)
In 1974, California Governor Ronald Reagan was asked about decriminalizing marijuana. After producing the Heath/Tulane University study, the so-called "Great Communicator" proclaimed, "The most reliable scientific sources say permanent brain damage is one of the inevitable results of the use of marijuana."

The Facts: Suffocation of Research Animals (excerpted)
As reported in Playboy, the Heath "Voodoo" Research methodology involved strapping Rhesus monkeys into a chair and pumping them with equivalent of 63 Colombian strength joints in "five minutes, through gas masks," losing no smoke. Playboy discovered that Heath had administered 63 joints in five minutes over just three months instead of administering 30 joints per day over a one-year period as he had first reported. Heath did this, it turned out, in order to avoid having to pay an assistant's wages every day for a full year.

The monkeys were suffocating! Three to five minutes of oxygen deprivation causes brain damage "dead brain cells." (Red Cross Lifesaving and Water Safety Manual) With the concentration of smoke used, the monkeys were a bit like a person running the engine of a car in a locked garage for 5, 10, 15 minutes at a time every day!

The Heath Monkey study was actually a study in animal asphyxiation and carbon monoxide poisoning.



"Drug traffic is public enemy number one domestically in the United States today and we must wage a total offensive, worldwide, nationwide, government-wide, and, if I might say so, media-wide."
- President Nixon, June 18, 1971

Richard Nixon's Missing Tapes
excerpts begin with the Nixon doctrine on why marijuana is much worse than alcohol: It is because people drink "to have fun" but they smoke marijuana "to get high." This distinction was evidently enormously significant to Nixon, because he repeats it.

Anti-Pot Propaganda
Shortly before last year's Super Bowl, about 22 million American households saw a series of reports on their local TV news about the dangers of marijuana. The reports were by journalist Mike Morris, and included interviews with Drug Czar John Walters and other "experts" on the harms of pot.

Ganja/Hemp lnfolinx

"You're enough of a pro," Nixon tells Shafer, "to know that for you to come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels and what the country feels, and what we're planning to do, would make your commission just look bad as hell."
Richard Nixon's Missing Tapes

"Marijuana does not lead to physical dependency, although some evidence indicates that the heavy, long-term users may develop a psychological dependence on the drug"
The Shafer Commission of 1970



Nixon Commission Report
Advising Decriminalization of Marijuana Celebrates 30th Anniversary
Special Release March 2002

Report Findings Are Still Valid
Nixon Never Read His Own Report, President Bush Should

March 22nd marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the report of the so-called "Shafer Commission" -- the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse -- whose members were appointed by then-President Richard Nixon. The Shafer Commission's (named after commission Chair, Gov. Raymond Shafer of Pennsylvania) 1972 report, entitled "Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding," boldly proclaimed that "neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety" and recommended Congress and state legislatures decriminalize the use and casual distribution of marijuana for personal use.

[DdC]

It's Been a War on Pot Smokers for 35 Years By Paul Armentano
CN Source: AlterNet March 22, 2007 USA 
Thirty-five years ago this month, a congressionally mandated commission on U.S. drug policy did something extraordinary: They told the truth about marijuana.

On March 22, 1972, the National Commission on Marihuana (sic) and Drug Abuse -- chaired by former Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond P. Shafer -- recommended Congress amend federal law so that the use and possession of pot would no longer be a criminal offense. State legislatures, the commission added, should do likewise.
Continued...cannabisnews/22793



While Nixon Campaigned, FBI Watched John Lennon

Former Pa. Gov. Raymond Shafer Dies

NORML's Weekly News Bulletin - March 22, 2007
CN Source: NORML March 22, 2007 Washington, DC, USA  

Richard Nixon On Pot

Former President Richard Nixon believed that Americans who advocated for marijuana law reform "weren’t good people" and repeatedly warned members of the National Commission on Marihuana (sic) and Drug Abuse not to issue findings that could appear to be "soft on marijuana," according to never-before aired Presidential audio-tapes to be broadcast today on NORML’s Daily AudioStash, online at: Continued...normlaudiostash

The audio, made available to the public for the first time on the NORML AudioStash, captures several conversations between Nixon, his staff, and former Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond P. Shafer – who headed the 1972 Marihuana Commission.

In the recordings, Nixon and Shafer consistently voice their objections to legalizing or regulating marijuana use in a manner similar to alcohol – a proposal that they note was then-favored by several members of Congress. Nixon also warns Shafer about making any recommendations that might appear to run contrary to the administration’s anti-drug position.

"The thing that is so terribly important here is not to appear that the Commission [is] frankly just a bunch of do-gooders … that would come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels and … what we’re planning to do," Nixon told Shafer on September 9, 1971.

He added, "On the marijuana thing, I have very strong convictions. … Just on my own analysis, once you start down that road, the chances of going further down that road are great. I know there’s a lot [of experts] who disagree with that … because of the people that are, frankly, promoting it [but] they’re not good people."

Separate recordings taped on March 21, 1972 – the day before the Commission released its findings – indicate that the White House intended to bury the report’s findings. Speaking with his domestic policy advisor John Ehrlichman, Nixon affirmed that his administration would not endorse the Commission’s recommendations to decriminalize the private possession and use of pot.

President Nixon: What is your feeling about this damned report, this thing?

John D. Ehrlichman: A lousy report.

President Nixon: Can we give an inch on this?

Ehrlichman: No, sir. No, sir. There is no place—

President Nixon: How was he able to sell all that [inaudible].

Ehrlichman: Well, I’ll never understand what went on in that commission, ‘cause this guy, for instance, from Rockford is a —

President Nixon: John Howard [inaudible].

Ehrlichman: —rock-ribbed conservative. †

President Nixon: Well, what do you think about legalizing the use and possession of marijuana?

Ehrlichman: It’s a crazy rule. What they’ve done is they’ve come half way. It’s this, it’s like liquor. There would be no law against consuming liquor at home, but there’d be a law against selling it. Now how the hell can you make that work?

President Nixon: Well, I made it clear enough to him that I don’t endorse it.

Ehrlichman: He’s not [under] any illusions, … and I made it very clear to him before he came in here so that he’s not under [any] misapprehensions.

To hear these and other audio transcripts, please visit: normlaudiostash



Zogby Poll: Majority Of Americans Back Removing Criminal Penalties For Adult Pot Use

National Commission On Marihuana Celebrates 35th Anniversary

For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500 or visit:
norml.org/7216

Additional audio commentary on the Shafer Commission report, including an exclusive interview with former Commission member Dr. Thomas Ungerlieder, is available on NORML’s Daily AudioStash at: normlaudiostash

Just What The Doctor Ordered?