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January 15, 1967 - Image 4

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Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 1967-01-15

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I

Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSrrY OF MICHIGAN
r -_ UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD TN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS

Announcing, the Edgar Awards for 1966

Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH.
-Truth Will Prevail

NEws PHONE: 764-0552

Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This inust be noted in all reprints.

\T

SUNDAY, JANUARY 15, 1967

NIGHT EDITOR: SUSAN ELAN

i

The Use of Marijuana:
It Should Be Legal

TYPICALLY, Dr. John Pollard's inno-
cent and obvious observation that the
use of LSD and marijuana has probably
increased over the past few years drew
sensational press. The only one who ad-
mitted being unsurprised about the reve-
lation was Ann Arbor Police Chief Wal-
ter Krasny, who tries to track down the
stuff.
Nobody, however, was really surprised.
But nobody was really asking the right
question either. So I will: Why is mari-
juana illegal?
There are two main reasons why a drug
could be proper subject for a prohibitory
law.
F IT PROVOKES dangerous anti-so-
cial behavior in the user.
Marijuana does not seem to do this. In
fact, many claim its effects are the op-
posite. A 1962 White House conference,
the Ad Hoc Panel on Drug Abuse, stated
that "although marijuana has long held
the reputation of inciting individuals to
commit sexual offenses and,, other anti-
social acts, evidence is inadequate to sub-
stantiate this."
And in "Narcotics and Narcotic Addic-
tion," D. W. Maurer and V. H. Vogel state:.
"While there may be occasional violent
psychopaths who have used marijuana,
have committed crimes of violence, and
who have, in court, explained their ac-
tions as uncontrollable violence result-
ing from the use of the drug ... these are
exceptions to the general run of mari-
juana users .. . It would seem that, from
the point of view of public health and
safety, the effects of marijuana present
a very minor problem compared with the
abusive use of alcohol and that the drug
has received a disproportionate share of
publicity as an inciter of violent crime."
" IF IT HAS DANGEROUS effects on the
physical health of the user.
Marijuana is considerably healthier to
use than alcohol. Marijuana has been
shown time and time again to be non-
addictive. It does not, of itself, make the
user more prone to "graduate" to addic-
tives. Nor does it have the deep psychol-
ogically penetrating effects of LSD, an
entirely separate drug with which many
people incorrectly associate marijuana.
As stated in "The Pharmacological Basis
of Therapeutics" by L. S. Goodman and
L. Gilman, "There are no lasting ill-ef-
fects from the acute use of marijuana
... Marijuana habituation does not lead
to the use of morphine, heroin, cocain or

alcohol, and the associated use of mari-
juana and narcotic drugs is rare." Nor
does it create a psychic dependence in
the user.
Alcohol, on the other hand, is mildly
addictive and can, with excessive use, re-
sult in both brain damage and in liver
disease. Our most popular "drug," to-
bacco, is a known carcinogenic.
IT IS DIFFICULT to argue that one drug
be made legal simply because others
with more harmful effects are already
such. But if we are to assume that alcp-
hol and all the psycho-sociological impli-
cations surrounding its usage are legally
acceptable, then we simply cannot use the
same arguments to make marijuana le-
gal.
And indeed, the law itself has many
serious negative effects. By making a
cheap, easily accessible drug illegal one
makes its usage far more attractive to
high school students and to those too
young to know how to handle it. Its il-
legalization promotes underworld activi-
ties. And when such widespread activity is
illegal, enforcement has more the effect
of punishing the unlucky dupe who gets
caught by chance than of keeping usage
down.
To effectively enforce this law would
require a police effort far exceeding that
used to unsuccessfully "enforce" Prohibi-
tion. Like- Prohibition, all the illegality
of marijuana does is create another crime.
AND THE LONG-RUN effect of a bad
law is only to promote disrespect for
laws in general. None of the arguments
from the medical standpoint are new. As
early as 1944 a major government inves-
tigation done by the La Guardia Com-
mission, reported that: "Marijuana is
more a nuisance (to prohibit) than it is
a danger."
But by public association to the ma-
j or habit-forming drugs, the "minor" drug
marijuana has acquired a big label. And
judging from the reaction to Pollard's
remarks, the popular attachment of the
use of marijuana with the anti-war move-
ment and with campus rebellion will make
a fair, rational re-examination of the
law impossible for quite some time.
THIS IS NOT the time to flood the area
with law enforcement officers in a
vain attempt to stop a natural trend; the
time has clearly come to question the
validity of the law itself.
-HARVEY WASSERMAN
Editorial Director

By ROGER RAPOPORT
,ONCE -AGAIN IT is time to
present the most cherished
awards in all academia: The
Michigan Daily Edgars. This year's
third annual presentation honors
those individuals and institutions
who have done the most to further
the intellectual, moral, and social
values exemplified by our nation's
FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover.
From a multitude of strong
nominees our judges, Mr. Hoover,
Rep. Joe Fool (D-Tex), Gov.
Ronald Reagan and Lt. Gen.
Lewis B. Hershey, have chosen
the following winners:
FATHER OF STATE UNIVER-
SITIES EDGAR-To RutgerUni-
versity, which is celebrating its
200th anniversary this year by
dropping the school flag from a
plane onto four of the world's
highest mountain peaks including
Mt. Everest and Mt. Fujiyama.
ARTHUR SYLVESTER EDGAR
-To the University's Executive
Vice-President Marvin L. Niehuss
for answering a Defense Depart-
ment document maintaining that
the school is known as one basic-
ally for "rich white students" by
saying that the report "should not
have been made public."
COMEBACK OF THE YEAR
EDGAR - To Berkeley's dynamic
Mario Savio for his brilliant en-
core.
MICHAEL RADDOCK EDGAR
-To Saturday Review magazine's

the University " 'U' Ruling Irks
Student Council."
MARTIN DIES EDGAR--To
The New York Times' perceptive
education editor Fred (all the
facts) Hechinger. who wrote re-
cently that "during the McCarthy
years most strong university ad-
ministrations were able to resist
right wing threats."
MARCELLA CISNEY EDGAR
To the University admnistration
for finding a way to finance a
new theatre here in the midst of
a desperate shortage of classroom
space.
ALLEN DULLES EDGAR-To
Michigan State University's Vice-
President for Students John Fu-
zak, who hired a graduate stu-
dent during the past year "to keep
track" of student activists by at-
tending their meetings and re-
porting on them. We're Just try-
ing to get, some knowledge about
them to find out if they have some
legitimate complaints," a b o u t
MSU, Fuzak explained.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE ED-
GAR- To University President
Harlan H. Hatcher for justifying
the school's compliance with a
HUAC subpoena because "uni-
versities must obey the law," while
the school is fighting the state's
Public Act 379 in court and re-
fusing to comply with P.A. 124.

A

Shown above (right) is Harlan Hatcher, one of the distinguished recipients of the "Edgar Awards"
announced today. Above at left is John E. Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
and center, Ronald Reagan, governor of California; both judges for the annual awards.

M
+h

Travel Editor, Horace Sutton, for
his recent fact-filled report on the
University. He reported that Uni-
versity students were protesting
because the administration "sup-
posedly" complied with a HUAC
subpoena.
VINCE LOMBARDI EDGAR -
To Notre Dame football coach Ara
Parseghian. When a Michigan
State News reporter asked Par-
seghian at a press conference
what he thought Notre Dame's
greatest weakness was, Parse-

ghian threw the reporter out of
the conference.
RICHARD VANHOUSE EDGAR
-To University Chi Phi member
Frank H. Miller, '67, for claiming
publicly that fraternity rush
practices like having one's head
"submerged in a flushing toilet"
brings "men together."
SHELBY SHERTZ EDGAR -
the University for celebarting its
150th anniversary this year after
celebrating its 50th anniversary
in 1887.

IPCAC EDGAR-To Stanford
student Stuart McRae, who de-
clined to answer a question at the
House Un-American Activities
Committee hearing last summer
because it "nauseates me and I
might throw up all over the
table."
HURON VALLEY AD-VISOR
EDGAR-To the Ann Arbor News,
for headlining the Student Gov-
ernment Council secession from

PLAYMATE OF THE
EDGAR-To Margie.

YEAR

Realistic Government b Goodman'

By ROBERT JOHNSTON
Collegiate Press Service
ABOUT THE LAST place one
would expect to find semi-an-
archist and student hero Paul
Goodman ("Growing Up Absurd
and Compulsory Mis-Education")
is in the Harvard Business Re-
view ("Productivity Management,"
"Heuristic Programs for Decision-
Making").
But compare the following two
articles.
Goodman's latest appearance in
one of his native habitats (The
New York Review of Books) is
on "The Psychology of Being
Powerless" andis typical ofBhis
attacks on contemporary "over-
organization."
He says, "The psychology (of be-
ing powerless), in brief, is that
history is out of control. It is no
longer something that we make
but something that happens to us."
The world, in other words, is run
not for the sake of people but in
conformance with quantifiable val-
ues which necessarily exclude hu-
man concerns.
Compare this with a quote from
the May-June Harvard Business
Review, in an article on "The Af-
fluent Organization," by a pre-
sumably respectable business ad-
ministration professor at Berke-
ley, Raymond Miles.
"In the modern organization,"
he says, "with dollar resources
and machines, there is typically
an unfettered drive to maximize
employment and return. But the
people 'sectors of the organiza -
tion-its human resources-re-
main underdeveloped and under
employed. The individual orga
nization member is seldom chal-
lenged to develop, or allowed to
use his full capabilities."
IT READS like Goodman, but
the comparison will undoubtedly
deeply offend the sensibilities of
his disciples. For them, Miles'

"workable" or "realistic" approach
to today's problems a priori reeks
of the worst sins of the Establish-
ment and is perforce expelled
from further discourse.
Goodman himself might react
similarly. In the Review article
mentioned, he decides that apoc-
alypse is the only way to elimin-
ate our problems. He can then pro-
ceed to condemn all alternatives
as too narrow-minded. One can-
not argue with this kind of logic,
for if everything is all wrong, viol-
ent, thorough-going revolution is
indeed the only answer.
THESE PROBLEMS aside, how-
ever, Goodman has managed to
hammer away consistently at one
theme: the world is for people and
not vice versa; a Great Society
for the sake of a great society is
not worth having; it is the people
we ought to be concerned with.
Working from this philosophi-
cal base, he objects to modern
"scientific" trends in planning,
organization and decision-making
(whether in universities, the fed-
eral government or business) as
inhuman.
"Indeed," he says, "at least in
the social sciences, the more var-
iables one can technically compute,
the less likely it is that there will
be prior thinking about their rele-
vance to human life."
IN MILES' defense, one can first
point out that if he is to have
any impact at all on Harvard Bus-
iness Review readers he simply
cannot come right out and say he
is more interested in people than
in profits. Second, and more im-
portant, how can either the New
Left's Goodman or General Motors'
Roche object when Miles shows us
a way to have our cake and eat it
too?
As Miles puts it, "The modern
generation has been bent by the

winds of change pushing against
all of our social institutions. It
wants and expects more from all
phases of life-purpose, meaning
and challenge are its bywords.
Nevertheless, it appears that man-
agers at every level consistently
underestimate the ambition and
enthusiasms of their subordinates
for a chance to contribute."
If business employes can find
new tasks for themselves that are
challenging and meaningful to
them (Goodman's concern) and if,
at the same time, the company's
interests are advanced, who can
complain?
IT IS NOT a little ironic that
one finds "applied Goodman" in
the Harvard Business Review, but
it is significant not so much be-
cause of its ,location but because
it is, forgive the word, realistic.
Goodman has long suffered from
an inability to build any concrete
bridges between his world and the
real world.
Thus, he will write, "Common
people, who do not have to govern,
can let themselves feel powerless
and resign themselves. They re-
spond with the familiar combina-
tion of not caring and, as a sub-
stitute, identifying with those
whom they fancy to be powerful."
Goodman's answer is self-gov-
ernment-so that the poor can
better their conditions and the
middle classes construct a mean-
ingful life from suburban escap-
ism. (I don't worry here about
the rich; they have long since
learned how to do both.) But
Goodman has no real course of
action to offer, only faith to sup-
port his statement that it can be
done.
MILES CITES hard experience,
and there is remarkable similarity
between the managerial attitude
he has encountered and the pro-

fessional politicians' attitude be-
moaned by Goodman. The first
is demonstrated by a "bemused
grin" when the managers are ask-
ed if they have ever given their
subordinates a chance to demon-
strate the judgment, creativity and
responsibility that it is claimed
they lack,
We see the second when Good-
man cites one of the driving forc-
es of the Kennedy administration
as expressed by Arthur Schlesin-
ger, "One simply must govern." He
is implicitly asking the politician,
"Why not let us govern our-
selves?", yet he offers no reasons.
Miles, on the other hand, of-

fors a very powerful one: it pays.
AS THE SAYING GOES, if you
can't fight them, join them.
Whether building a better mouse-
trap, running a better government
or providing a better university
education, if the employes, the
governed or the student can do it
better, by acceptable standards,
then why not? The task remains
for students and social theorists
to show, as Miles did, that this is
in fact the case.
(Johnston was 1965-66 editor
of The Daily and is now a grad-
uate student In the Woodrow
Wilson School of Public Affairs
at Princeton University.)

J

Letters*Group Protests
Adminis trator Offices

To the Editor:
AS OFFICERS of the newly
created Backers of Adminis-
trative Recognition of Freshmen,
we were most disturbed by Lee
Weitzenkorn's article on office
furnishings.
The most objectionable situation
revealed in the story was the fact
that Vice-President Cutler's office
does not have wall-to-wall carpet-
ing like Vice-President Pierpont's.
We feel that students who viist
the Vice-President for Student
Affairs are more important than
LETTERS
All letters must be typed,
double-spaced and should be no
longer than 300 words. All let-
ters are subject to editing;
those over 300 words will gen-
erally be shortened.

the highest-ranking financier that
enters Mr. Pierpont's office.
MOREOVER, as a group of up-
per-classmen who have come to-
gether to protect and extend the
rights of first-year students (who
often "are not aware of the ad-
ministrative machinations going
on about them), we resent the
fact that the students were not
consulted about the furnishings.
We - hpe that any future re-
modeling plans for administrative
offices will be discussed with the
students, for it is the students
whom the administration and their
building were created to serve.
-Stephen Friedman,
'68, Chairman
-Martin Dreser, 168E,
Secretary
Backers of Administration
Recognition of
Freshmen

Mass Media: Image Builder

WHO SAYS ,a good University has to be
dull? Certainly not the local and na-
tional news media.
ABC television pictured the University,
as the place where the action is, where
students have a sophisticated mixture of
scholarship, personal growth and sex.
Meanwhile, a non-sensationalizing pro-
fessor came out with something everyone
knows - many people on this campus
smoke pot-and the rumors started flow-
ing from the Detroit news media that the
smoke in Ann Arbor is thicker than the
smog in New York.
THESE TWO EVENTS have changed the
image of the campus more than a
whole semester of effort by Vice-Presi-
dent in charge of Public Relations Mich-
ael Raddock or the Sesquicentennial Com-
mittee. That's not to say that they haven't
been trying, just that they've been con-
centrating their efforts in the wrong
areas.
To dramatize the need for funds for
more student housing, they should run a
news release saying that students sleep
together because of the lack of space. To
get more money for medical research
they could whisper about the need to do
something about the widespread VD.
Ejlg 3jrljigajt BjaiJ
The Daily is a member of the Associated Press and
Collegiate Press Service.
Subscription rate: $4.50 semester by carrier ($5 by
mal; $8 yearly by carrier ($9 by mail).

That is the kind of sensationalism the
Detroit papers like.
NOW, NO ONE denies the fact that stu-
dents sleep together, take marijuana,
and even LSD, but there are many more
essential things to write about. Students'
lives are being affected by the war in
Viet Nam, the freedom of a political dia-
logue on campuses is threatened by HUAC
and student and faculty self-respect is
being undermined by a headstrong Board
of Regents and administration. These are
the issues that concern this institution.
The University should be a place for
innovation and experimentation. It is too
bad that in reporting these events, news
media are concerned more with their friv-
olous aspects than with the serious im-
plications behind the,, new attitudes to-
ward drugs and sexual relations.
It is also too bad that the other im-
portant issues such as student participa-
tion, and freedom of speech are ignored.
IF THE NEWS MEDIA were' to take a
more mature attitude toward the events
on this campus, they might discover that
they had learned something. Or, would
that be too much to ask?
-RON KLEMPNER
No Comnment
OLD CAMPAIGNERS never die depart-
ment:
Barry Goldwater, famous national elec-
tions salt standse an Peellent chance

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