International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 143

International Journal on Criminology
as all parts of the plant cannabis sativa L. 70 Violations of this section shall be civil
infractions. Persons convicted of violating this section shall be fined $25.00 for
the first offense, $50.00 for the second offense, $100.00 for the third or subsequent
offense and no incarceration, probation, nor shall any other punitive or rehabilitative
measure be imposed.”
On July 1, 1973, Nixon approved the creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) in order for there to be a structure that could consolidate and
coordinate the federal government’s multiple drug-control activities. 71 The DEA
was presented as a “superagency” that was intended to provide the necessary impetus
to coordinate all federal efforts outside of the Department of Justice against
drugs, and in particular the collection of information on international issues concerning
the illegal trafficking of narcotics. 72
Also in 1973, Oregon became the first state to apply in its legislation the
recommendations of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. 73
Tom McCall, the governor at that time, called the legislation pioneering. 74
Ford Consolidates Nixon’s Measures
In December 1974, under the supervision of Gerald Ford—who had become
president following Watergate, the event that forced Nixon to resign—the National
Institute on Drug Abuse was created. This body would take control of
research on cannabis’s health effects and on what substances could replace it to obviate
its supposed addictiveness. This organization receives the samples required
to conduct its experiments from the DEA, which regulates the cultivation of cannabis
under the controls contained in Nixon’s Controlled Substances Act. 75
On September 30, 1975, Gerald Ford presented the White Paper on Drug
Abuse to the Domestic Council Drug Task Force created for the occasion. This is a
75-page document whose standout figure is the 10–17 billion dollars that the war
on drugs policy apparently cost each year, in the United States alone. Toward the
end of the text, it is stated that the total elimination of illegal drugs (natural and
synthetic) is unfortunately impossible. Despite this finding, Gerald Ford strengthened
the policy stance first formulated by Nixon once more. At the semantic level,
the DEA was made quasi-sacred by the new term of lead agency, replacing and
supposedly surpassing the concept of “superagency” created in 1973, but not re-
70 https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Ann_Arbor,_MI_Medicinal_Marijuana_Initiative.
71 https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-07/1970-1975%20p%2030-39.pdf.
72 https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-07/1970-1975%20p%2030-39.pdf.
73 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2001/02/which_states_have_decriminalized_marijuana_possession.html.
74 Grass, directed by Ron Mann, Canada, 1999, documentary film.
75 https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/marijuana/nidas-role-in-providing-marijuana-research
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