de~ - Digital Collections Home · -2---to talk about marijuana as a thing, and then talk about it as it'srelated to the law. Mr. Buckley: Well, why don't we try then, in at least

William F. Buckley, Jr.Richard Kleindienst and John Kaplan - Guestsc

FIRING LINENo. 213

MARIJUANA AND THE LA\i September 3, 1970New York City

Mr. Buckley: Mr. Richard Kleindienst is Deputy Attorney General of the United States

-- with the reputation of being absolutely ferocious on the subjects of drugs and

Democrats. (Laughter) He is, mirabile dictu, a graduate of Harvard College and the

Harvard Law School, from which he graduated magna cum laude. He practiced law, served

in 1964 as Director of Field Operations for Goldwater for President, ran for Governor of

Arizona was narrowly defeated. And in 1969, having served as general counsel to the

Republican National Committee, he went to Washington where he sits at the right hand of

Attorney General John Mitchell. It was ~rr. Kleindienst who conceived, or in any case,

administered the fabled Operation Intercept, designed to intercept the flow of n~rijuaaa

from Mexico to the United States, in the fall of 1969. Mr. John Kaplan is Professor of

Law at Stanford University and, as an undergraduate at Harvard, his proctor was Richard

( Kleindienst. His new book, "Marijuana -- the New Prohibition," is being very 'widely read.

Mr. Kaplan is a Conservative, a Republican who neither drinks nor smokes, and who served

as a public prosecutor for !uany years before teaching. He was invited in 1966 to sit on

a panel to recorrunend new drug legislation in California. After studying the matter deeply,

he completely reversed his previous conviction, cOlling out for the legalizatiorr of mari-

juana; he was thereupon fired. (Laughter) I should like to begin by asking Mr. Klein-

dienst whether he believes it possible to discuss marijuana and the lavT without arriving

at any fixed conclusions on how harrnful marijuana is.

~rr. Kleindienst: Yes, I think it is. I think a lot of the dialogue and conversation

in this fielQ has been subjective, and I think it has been emotional;it has been

predicated on preconceived notions on so-called moral standards and mores, without any

specific regard to the facts of it the evidence. And I think that the -- not only

is it possible, but I think it is a good thing to do right now in these particular times

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© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

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-- to talk about marijuana as a thing, and then talk about it as it's related to the law.

Mr. Buckley: Well, why don't we try then, in at least the first part of the program~ to

put into abeyance what we think aboutJwhat we think are the harmful effects of marijuana.

-- it is dangerous, or whether it is not dangerous -- and simply address ourselves to

the question raised by Mr. Kaplan in his book, -- because he, too, sort of suspends judg

ment on it; it starts off by saying he wished marijuana didn't exist. But then he feels

very strongly that whatever you say about how dangerous marijuana is, it seems to me to be

clear -- am I correct, Mr. Kaplan? -- that more damage is being done by legalizing it.

You use "criminalizing" it.

Mr. Kaplan:

Mr. Buckley:

rYlr. Kaplan:

"Criminalizing' is the~c~~nologist's term.

I see, yes.

"Criminalization," that's the term that is used in the job.

is being done than by permitting it to be sold over the counter.

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1-'.r. Buckley: More damage

Is th9.t correct?

Mr. K9.plan: Well -- I don't go that far. In other words, I don't say more conceivably.

I say that the cost of criminalizing marijuana is enormous and that in theory it could

be justified if the drug were as bad as some people said it was. ~ld then you go look

at what the dr~g is like, and you find that, although dangerous, it is nothing. like

Mr. Kleindienst: I don't know if you can separate the two because, if Mr. Kaplan's


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wouldn't that also apply to marijuana?

Mr. Kl~indienst: Well, it wouldn't apply, at least in my opinion, for a variety of

reasons. And many of them Mr. Kaplan has discussed at length in his book. But, ~irst

of all, other than the typical example that he uses in this book, which I describe

roughly as somebody who's mature, pretty sophisticated, pretty well oriented, maybe

thirty years of age, in a nice, quiet apartment, with his feet upon the couch, -- once

a week wants to light up a marijuana cigarette, get the beautiful effects of it, let it

go away and then go back to his business as compared to the chronic alcoholic who

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drinks alcohol to an excess. And all of us would, of course, agree that alcoholism

is a very, very serious, costly problem in the United States. But, if there is any

validity to the analogy that I have just made, I don't think that the marijuana problem

in today's society in the United states of America can be treated on such a simple basis.

And, therefore, one of the things that has to be injected into the formula of social cost

really is the over-all effect of adding to our society another thing that would tend to

detract from the validity, the Vitality, the strength, the purpose, the motivation, the

discipline of a free people.

Mr. Buckley: What do you say to that, Mr. Kaplan?

Mr. Kaplan: I confess I think it's nonsense. The first point is that we don't want to

add this thing to our culture. Well, all I can say is, just look around you~ It has

already been added, and the question is, how can we best cope with it. The second point,

all about the free people. Now I think that once you decide, as I am willing to debate

anyone on anywhere, that alcohol -- over the population as a whole -- is every bit, in

fact, more dangerous than marijuana, that then all of this business about a free people

is a people that is free to use alcohol apparently because of the legislators using alco-

hoI (Laughter) but if they use marijuana, they then are criminals and can be arrested.

( In California, 50,000 people were ar~ested last year for marijuana offenses. And that's'-

just, you know, -- in that respect, it is not a free people; in that respect, the worst·

part about it is that these people are alienated from our society. Tney grow to have a


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hostility toward the police, and I thirL~ it's~ very damaging to a society. Noy,

I agree, if we could work out a virus that would destroy every kind of this plant --

but the drug does no good-- I would be quite happy to do that. I am not a pro-marijuana

man. But on the hand, I think it's only fair to tell you that if I could prevent any

alcohol from being made and have it enforceable, I would do that, too.

Mr. Kleindienst: I think I have to make a footnote point here on one statement, and I

saw it as a thread all the way through Mr. Kaplan's book which, incidentally, from the

standpoint of an expository style, from the standpoint of completeness, and from the stand

point of specific writing, is a very good treatment of the subject. But I disagree with

the conclusions. But it is a very well written book, Mr. Kaplan, and I congratulate you

for it.

Mr. Kaplan: I hope my publisher is listening. (Laughter)

Mr. Kleindienst: But the thread that goes through this book is that the alcohol, or the

alcoholic is bad -- it's really no worse than what we now know about marijuana. We've

legalized alcoholism, or the consumption of alcohol, we now have restraints upon the con

sumption of marijuana in this country, let's legalize it. Instead of haVing 5-20 million

people experimenting use of it, let's have a 100 million people use it in our society.

And that, to me, is the big question that America has to decide; it is whether or not

through legalization, through licensing, through your vice model, or any other device,

we want to create the means and opportunity whereby the United States of America, at

this very critical juncture in civilization and this time of change, wants. to run the

risk of submitting itself to a drug culture. I firmly believe that we do not. If

~rr. Kaplan is wrong, and we went in his direction, and we woke up ten or twenty years

from now and found out that he was wrong -- as I think someone once said, the masters

in the Kremlin would have done more against us than firing a shot than anything that

they could have done themselves.


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Mr. Buckley: Well, Mr. Kleindienst, do you concede that, in fact, the laws against

marijuana are not working -- I'm not saying -- I'Jjl not asY~ng you to say that they

don't work with some people; as a matter of fact, manifestly they do, but in fact

every year more people are smoking marijuana. Now, under the circumstances, --

Mr. Kleindienst: The laws are unrealistic.

Mr. Buckley: Yes, okay, but I'm not asking that question, -- but isn't it therdOre

projectable that in X number of years as many people are going to smoke marijuana as

are disposed to smoking it, irrespective of the penalty?

Mr. Kleindienst: No, I disagree with that. No~ I, I think that, as happened in Japan,

following World War II, there was a tendency for many, many hundreds of thousands of

Japanese to use dnugs, and it dropped off. Now, for reasons that we might discuss

later, some of the specific irritants in our society are being ameliorated, and we

( don't have to think of this as a chronic national problem. But, I would fully agree,

and it was this Administration, this President, this Attorney General,who recommended

to Congress that they have a more realistic revision of penalties with possession and

use of marijuana -- that is to say, from a felony to a misdemeanor --

Mr. Buckley: So, you'll only go to jail for one year?

Mr. Kleindienst: Well -- really, many of the States, as v~. Kaplan has pointed out,

have realistic attitudes with respect to young people and first use of marijuana.

}rr. Buckley: Does realistic attitude mean that they don't apply the law any more than

the people observe it?

~~. Kleindienst: I think there's a great hypocrisy with the law now where it is a

felony, and this hypocrisy and the refusal to enforce it as a felony, and I think

~1!". Kaplan would agree to this, is one of the reasons why young people are ~etting a

disrespect for the law. But I think we have to tailor the initial criminal penalty

with respect to the youth, and first use and possession, to fit the nature of the

crime. And it wasn't Ramsay Clarke, and it wasn't r·1r. Katzenbach or Nr Rob t rr. • er l\.ennedy


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( or the Liberals who went to the Congress and recommended that they reduce the pena~ty ror

use and possession from a felony to a misdemeanor. It was Attorney General ~litche~ and

the President of the United States -- because we look at thi.s as a comprehensive, very

complicated, all-embracing problem that doesn't lend itself to easy answers and to easy

solutions. And we are willing to be guided by available scientific data, experience --

to have a sensible approach to the problem. But, and I want to say this very unequivocally,

so that no one in this audience would ever misunderstand, this Administration, under no

circumstances, could justify the legalization of a dangerous, injurious drug such as

mari juana - _.

Mr. Kaplan: Or alcohol. (One or two people applaud)

I>1r. Kleindienst: -- as a part of the culture of American society. Under no circumstances.

Mr. Buckley: And your comment is what?

Mr. Kaplan: I'n1 appalled~ (Slight laughter) I am genuinely appalled. You know, I have

had politicians tell me before going on to speak that -- well, of course, if you could

show me how to get reelected, I'd legalize marijuana in a minute. I know their story on

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it, but I just convince my constituents. And then fifteen minutes later they're talking

about kooky professors who'd lead this country down the road, as the Kremlin wants to.

I'm not saying you told me that -- I want to make it clear.

Mr. Kleindienst: I've never said that.

Mr. Kaplan: But, you know, the American flag gets waved and draped that this is what

the fiends in the Kremlin want. Being honest, if I were in .the Kremlin, I would want

something which would strike at the fabric of-.American society -- the respect that people

have for their own government, the feeling that in the government of the United States

there are people who drink alcohol, use one dangerous drug; but just because youth

doesn't use alcohol and prefers another drug which any reasonable person looking at the

data -- and I set it out at some length would concede is ~ more dangerous than

alcohol, and I mean over the population as a whole, Mr. Kleindienst would give you the


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cimpression that all Kaplan is saying is, a skid row alcoholic is worse than a fellow

who smokes a joint of a marijuana cigarette once a week in his East 80th Street apart-

mente I say something very much~ than that. I say that any person, starting out

with his first drink, or his first marijuana cigarette, -- and certainly this is clear

if he is above the age of twenty-one -- is more likely to ruin his life through alcohol

intrinsically as a drug than he is to ruin his life through marijuana.think

Mr. Buckley: As a matter of fact, that's not correct. I don't/that's correct.

Mr. Kaplan: Well, I say, intrinsically as a drug; yes, I think -- (crosstalk)

Mr. IG.iendienst: You know one thing, Mr. Kaplan, of all the thoughtf\tl consideration

you gave to your book, that I think you really ignored -- and I don't think you did it

deliberately, but I think your point of view became directed to one area -- and, incidentally,

this isn't a political speech; I'm not running for anything. I tried that and I camein

( second; so I'm not a candidate for any office.

Mr. Kaplan: (Crosstalk) _. you're quite neutral with respect to the electoral issue.

Mr. Kleindienst: I'm a statesman. A statesman is a dead politician. (Laughter)

So, I'nl looking at it from the standpoint of a human being who has a particular

responsibility in tne government. But there is one aspect of this whole business about

the argwnent of marijuana vs. alcohol that I still think has been really not considered

thoughtfully enough, v~. Buckley, and that's this: Leaving aside the alcoholic, social

prOblem, a drug, terrible waste, no justification for it. But the person who engages

in social drinking, short of alcoholism, it seems to me -- based upon my own experience

as a social drinker -- and you can't co~nent on this because you don't drink --

Mr. Kaplan: No.

Mr. Kleindienst: is a person who really uses alcohol as a social medium to reduce

(inhibitions slightly in order to better facilitate his communication with human

beings and his really better understanding of the realities around him. The specific

reason, as I am led to believe, on reading your book and other literature why I, peop e·


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smoke marijuana habitually, other than just a guy who's curious about it, is that he's

a person who wants to get a euphoric effect for the purpose of having a means by which to

depart in one degree or another from the realities around himself. Now, just imagine

what this would mean if some 50-100 million people in our society, who every time --

Mr. Buckley: (Laughing) If I could pick the right ones I'd say go ahead. (LaUghter)

Mr. IO.eindienst: -- in times like this when we are having very tough decisions. We

are going through a social revolution in our country. Wnen, as a result of things that

have happened recently, our young people are uncertain, they're frustrated, they're

alienated -- when hard decisions have to be made, discipline has to be obtained --

it seems to me that anything we would do that would tend to put between that young

person and the hard decisions of his free life around him -- as a means by which either

to avoid it, to depart from it, to lack motivation, and reality to face them -- is

something that goes really at the core of our whole society. And when you start talking

of it in those terms, if you can accept my argument, and I can see by the look on Mr.

Kaplan's face that he can't,then his argument about the cost of marijuana enforcement,

the criminalizing of marijuana, to me reduces itself down to a very, very -- if not

specious -- a very, very insignificant argwrnent in terms of cost and in terms of the

charge on society.

(Station Break)

Mr. Buckley: Mr. Kaplan.

Mr. Kaplan: I was struck while Mr. Kleindienst .was describing the use of alcohol as

a method of raeasing inhibitions slightly and making you feel slightly happier and

sharpening somewhat your awareness of things going on

Mr. IO.eindienst: I didn't use those words.

Mr. Kaplan: Well, it was approxim -- I think that's a fair approximation. I was .

( struck that -- and indeed several members of the studio audience, I could see, regarded

it as quite amusing because he was giving exactly what the marijuana smokers typically


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say are the reasons they use marijuana. The overwhelming reason they say they use it

5.s on a recreational basis. Now, I'm not talking about the potheads -- the equivalent.

of the alcoholic, except that he's a smaller percentage of the using population. But

they typically say they use it to relax, to break' down social inhibitions. And the two

drugs, alcohol and marijuana, when used in low doses, are strikingly similar. It's

just amazing how similar they are when you start looking at them. The major differences

between the two drugs, I think, are that -- well, there are some differences that affect

them, metabolical and biochemical, the way they work -- but the two major differences.

are: 1. It is easier to gauge your intake of marijuana because 'users report that they

do what is known as "pipe trading' their doses -- they stop when they've had enough;

nobody knows quite why, primarily, I think, because they lose interest in the ve~ dif-

ficult process of taking it into their lungs.

( Mr. Buckley: They forget how to puff. (Laughter)\,

1-1r. Kaplan: Yes, they just aren't interested anymore. And with alcohol you can keep

slurping it down, especially if you've had a meal, so that it takes three-quarters of an

hour to hit; people get very drunk after they've had their fifth martini, not realizing,

you know, they just wait and it doesn't happen fast enough. The other difference is

a genuine tolerance build-up for alcohol where you have to keep increasing your dose

to get the same effect, even if you're a social drinker. And the effect of very low

levels of alcohol consumption which approximates marijuana use among social users are

just not seen. But, again' and again, I hear people say, alcohol is used for social

purposes by people at cocktail parties, to relax, -- whereas marijuana is used by people

who want a "high," a disorienting experience. You know -- it's not true~ And anybody

who talks to a large nuraber of recreational marijuana users --

(v~. Buckley: Recreational felons? (Laughter)

Mr. Kaplan: Recreational felons these days, I regret to say. And, frankly, I think

making them recreational misdemeanants is not a great improvement. For instance,


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in California we see that 95~ of the people who are sentenced in California for marijuana

possession get less than a year in jail,anyway.

Mr. Buckley: Uncl,er Reagan?

Mr. Kaplan: Well, Govenlor Reagan does not pass sentence in this State, wl1ess it's on

university officials. But in the courts, 9010 or more -- more than 9CY/J -- don't get over

a year in jail sentences. The great advantage, I think, of Mr. Kleindienst's proposal

to cut it down to a year will not be to minimize the wear and tear on our younger genera

tion; it will be to minimize the atrocities like where the radical or somebody else who is

unpopular, who is found with a marijua.na cigarette, will get ten years. Now there _:.

Mr. Buckley: Like the Angela Davis persecution.

Mr. Kaplan: Well -- (laughs) you picked a fairly unfortunate one -- (Laughter)

Mr. Buckley: You started it.

Mr. Kaplan: That's true, but the point is I prefer to take a fellow in Michigan who

was a white Panther.

Mr. Buckley: What is a white Panther?

Mr. Kaplan: Well, I always thought it was a contradiction in terms, but it's apparently

a group that feels sympathy for the Black Panthers, but were not allowed in because of

their racial exclusion policies.

Mr. Kleindienst: I would if I would be rude to interrupt because I made a brief

statement, and it can't be clinical because of the shortness of time as to the reason

I felt social drinkers drink. I didn't describe a person who has five martinis, because

you are now in the category of what I would consider probably to be an alcoholic.

(Laughter) And then you pointed out to the audience that this is in reality just

exactly how you would describe the habitual, moderate marijuana user and, therefore,

the two are alike, they do it for the same purpose. On page 70 of your book you have

( an example from Eric Goode's collection in which you say that,although this person

differs from any of the others, it is typical -- and here's a twent,.·two-year old


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college senior, who played in a rock band on week-ends, now enrolled in a graduate

business school, he has smoked marijuana twice a month during a school year and everf

day during the summer. And I would like to read to this audience how he describes

the effect that that kind of use of marijuana has on him, which I would gather is the

moderate kind of marijuana used.

~~. Kaplan: No, no -- (crosstalk)

Mr. Buckley: All right, go ahead. (crosstalk) (Laughter)

)fIr. Kleindienst: :But this is how I understand it. He starts out by saying, "Things.

would start striking me fUIlIlY; I mean, somebody would say something, and I would keep

hearing it. Or I would look at something, and I would find myself looking at it for

an overly long period of time. And, all of a sudden, I would wake up and say, 'What

the hell am I dofng.' I used to play games, I used to do things with my eyes --

great things -- nothing that ever really scared me because I could always be cautious

not to go too high, so I wouldn't have, you know, a bad time. I could always know

where I was and what I was doing, unless I made myself forget. And then, all of a

sudden, I realized that everything in my whole world was back there several million

miles away, and I got clutched for a minute; so I opened my eyes and I came back.

I liked to do stuff like that." Now, lIve just picked out isolated sentences, Mr.

Kaplan, because the time doesn't permit me to read the whole thing. But the point

I'm trying to make is that if this is regarded as a typical experience of the moderate,

well-controlled marijuana user, I say that that does not fairly correspond to the social

drinker of a martini, or two martinis, before dinner as a means by which they facilitate

and bring about social intercourse. I'm not talking about the five martinis drinker,

a~d 11 m not talking about the alcoholic.

( Mr. Buckley: How about that, now?\

~I. Kleindienst: But the point I'm making is that the reason for the marijuana habitual

user is to do something with himself that is entirely different and opposite to what

the social drinker does.© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

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Mr. Kaplan: I really don't think it's that different from the social drinker in those

terms. As a matter of fact, if you analyze what the fellow says, it is that when you

have a marijuana cigarette, it's fun to muse there and sort of dream a little -- at

any moment you go back to reality in the sense that clinical tests have shown that

when you give people on marijuana a list of numbers to add -- numbers to subtract -

they can do better than people on equivalent amounts of alcohol. What he says is,

frankly, what I have done without the use of any drugs at all when Da.ve been going

off to sleep. Y9u sometimes imagine that you, 're just far away, floating through th~

air and gee, if that's the reason we're putting people in jail, I just don't see the

point. (Crosstalk)

Mr. Kleindienst: If that were the reason, we wouldn't be here. Let me ask the audience

whether they would attribute these kinds of experiences, which are described as being

the experiences of a'mild high," (sounds of girlish giggles) -- that's his ordinary use

of marijuana -- with their concept, leaving aside the alcoholic and the abuser, the

person who is sick and manifests that sickness through an excessive consumption of

alcohol, whether they would correspond these sensations with social. drinking in this

country; first, euphoria, -- that means intoxication -

(Station Break) Mr. Buckley: Excuse me, one second, we have a break.

Mr. Buckley: Okay, Mr. Kleindienst, would you read the

. Mr. Kleindienst: Yes, I'm going to read very quickly. These are what are described

as symptoms of a "mild hig~t: Euphoria -- that means intoxication; 2. A feeling of

detachment and relaxation; 3. A feeling that sensations are more intense; 4. changes

in the perception of distance and time; 5. the tendency to be easily distracted; 6.

disruption of thought and speech; 7. suggestibility; 8. increased sense of sociability;

( 9. hilarity. Now, if you think that every person in this country who has a cocktail

before dinner either experiences these ingredients that I've mentioned or has that

cocktail for the purpose of having these feelings, then I think you would probably be


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inclined to say with Mr. Kaplan that the social drinker before dinner is the same person

who deliberately goes off in a corner and smokes a marijuana cigarette. I do not believe

that is true. And I do not believe that most of the people in this country think that

is true, either.

Mr. Kaplan: Well, first, let me point out that if this is a complaint about marijuana,

that euphoria is not really intoxication -- it just means you feel good. And if these are

things that Mr. Kleindienst has complained about as reasons for throwing people in jail

for using marijuana, I find them, frankly, very weak. But I'll also show you -- I

hate to q.uote my own book --

l.fr. Buckley: Are you ashamed of it?

Mr. Kaplan: No, no, I'm not ashamed of it at all. I'd be quite happy to display i:e, if

( it weren't for the fact that it would be edited out of the tape.

Mr. Kleindienst: I'm a politician -- he's a book salesman. (Laughter)

Mr. Kaplan: Precisely. Let me describe something from my book as the symptoms of

.something: heightened pulse rate, facial flushing, sweating, marked adrenal activity.

In many cases, loss of breath, followed by feelings of dizziness and nausea. There are

in addition reliable reports of death following the activity especially among the middle

ages who neglect exercise. That by the way is a game of tennis. And if you stop to

think, the descr~ion is a perfectly accurate one. Those are son~ of the symptoms of

the game of tennis.

lvir. Kleindienst: You know, Mr. Kaplan, the criticisms I have of your book -- now, you're

a thoughtful scholar, and I know that you were dedicated in painstaking research on this

thing. But the one criticism I have of your book is that it devotes too much attention

on objective facts, without going into the subjective problems of society, of young

( people, and of the reasons why people engage in certain kinds of actiVity, and the

psychological problem that's involved with this whole problem of a drug culture.


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Mr. Kaplan: Okay.

Mr. Kleindienst:. I read that example of yours about playing tennis -- so that, therefore,.

everybody who plays tennis is as much to be condemned in this society as a person who

becomes a drug addict. And, of course, that's ridiculous, you know.

Mr. Kaplan: Well, I know. And, interestingly enough, Mr. Kleindienst, I would turn

your principle around and say the thing you should look at is why people are so upset

about tnarijuana when they've grown up in a society that uses something that everybody

agrees is just as dangerous~ In terms of harmful to health~

l~. Kleindienst:. I think that it gets down to another aspect of this thing, Mr. Buckley,

that we haven't really touched upon, and that is the nature of the substance. We've

had a prohibition for our young people consuming alcoholin this country; many of them

experiment with it in one form or another form or another; they don't drink it at

school; they don't drink it at home. When they get drunk, you can smell it on them,

-- the affect of it can be clinically described for several hours after its use.

Marijuana,on the other hand, is something that you can put in :your pocket, you can

go into the bathroom, you can go behind the building, you can do it in the car; once

the influence of it leaves you,you can't demonstrate -- is this not correct -- it's

difficult at best to demonstrate that someone has used marijuana. Consequently, we

are introducing to our young people at a very critical time, not only in today's

times, but in their personality development an easy means by which to do something

that, let's say, we admit is bad -- and that is to become. intoxicated~ I've alwaysare

felt that the teen ages of young people/ the time of their most critical learning

process -- the time when they have to progressively make hard decisions in terms of

discipline. It's one thing to characterize a 50 year-old successful man smoking

marijuana, and it's another thing to introduce a means by which this person is

( tempted to depart from the hard disciplines of life: to have motive, to have

direction, to have a consciousness of reality, to understand the price that it really


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requires of any human being as they grow up and develop -- the difficulty of it --

and that every time a problem comes along, a frustration, a problem with their parents,

a problem with the war, a problem with racism, a problem with society, a problem with

the threat of the nuclear bomb, they can somehow or another easily and conveniently

divorce themselves from these awesome realities by euphoria. To suggest in today's

times that for any reason -- the cost of it criminally or any other reason -- that we

make this easy for our young people, I think --

Mr. Buckley: I .see your point, Mr. Kleindienst

Mr. Kleindienst: -- would be a terrible, terrible thing.

Mr. Buckley: I see your point, and I think that everybody recognizes that the more

frenetic the world becomes, the more necessarf it is for people to cultivate escapist

devices. I'm using the word, escapist, here not ;peJor~tively but simply clinically.

Some people get it by reading novels, and some people by spiritual exercises; some

people from alcohol, some people from tobacco. And the question before the house is,

ought marijuana to be permitted as another medium through which people seek this

escapism. Now, I don't think it follows, does it, that if marijuana were to disappear

from the face of the earth, there would be no gratifications available for people who

are seeking to escape. They would either turn to liquor or whatever. There was a

doctor here do you remember his name, Jeff, from the so-called hippy -- the so

called, "Hippy Doctor~r of Haight-Ashbury.

Mr. Kaplan: David Smith, probably.

~4r. Buckley: Yes. He made an interesting point -- that 5~ of the people who start

drinking become alcoholics, and 5% of the people who start smok!gg.· marijuana end up

heroin addicts. And he says it's not documentable, but there is some sort of feeling

-- some dawning intuition that they are the sam~ people.

¥~. Kleindienst: There's one fact that's different, Mr. Buckley, and that is that

alcohol is legal in this country; you know, it has been legalized, and marijuana is not


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-- it's not legalized --

Mr. Buckley: It's legalized because we couldn't illegalize it -- wasn't that it?

As I remember, if Prohibition had worked, we'd have Prohibition now, wouldn't we,

and X number of people would persevere and get their snorts but would. have to do so

illegally. Now -- (Crosstalk)

Mr. Kleindienst: I don't think the analogy is sound. I think it is an unsound analogy

because of the facts of the matter.

Mr. Buckley: The facts of the matter as Mr. Kaplan and others seem to approve ll.re that

more and more people every year are using marijuana. Now, you say that that curve, for

reasons that you haven't vouchsafed to us, is somehow going to flatten -- as you say

it did in Japan. There's no way that I can see. that you can predict this. Now, I

think we can all deplore the fact that it is going to go up, and it is going up, but

meanwhile, Mr. Kaplan has raised a point that as long as it is going up, don't we hav.e

certain fall-outs from persevering in trying to enforce that law, --

f4r. Kaplan: We do.

Mr. Buckley: which are manifestly (crosstalk)·

~. Kleindienst: -- the curve is going to up like this, if we legalize it, and I

assume that if we legalize it, it is going to go up like this. Because in the

cost to society -- and what he talks about, the criminalizing of marijuana, I think

it would be fantastically acute. One of the thing we ought to remind ourselves of

is that our Communist neighbors, you know, who have no regard for freedom whatsoever,

have very, very stringent laws with respect to the use of drugs --.other than alcohol.

Mr. Buckley: From which, what follows:

Mr. Kleindienst: From which what follows, I think that those people in Communist

countries who have the means and power by which to closely regulate human lives,

know that in terms of national determination, national will, national strength and


( -1'7-

national purpose, that they should not have a drug culture --

Mr. Buckley:

anything.

(Laughs) The point is, the Comnumists don't know very much about

(

Mr. Kleindienst: This is the one thing that I think they know enough about, and thatpolitical

is that you can't have a people, if you're going to impose their/philosophy on the world,

you can't have a people on a drug culture.

Mr. Buckley: Presumably, we know they want to impose their political philosophy on the

world, they should, for instance, have enough to eat -- in which case they should have

free agrica.lture.

~tr. Kleindienst: You and I share identical Views with respect to Communists, ~tr. Buckley

Mr. Bucluey: (Crosstalk) But what I'm saying is that I don't think it follows that

because they're Comstockian on the subject of

Mr. Kleindienst: (Crosstalk) The slave masters of Russia don't want a drug culture

kind of people, if their mission to themselves is the con~uering of the world.

r,tr. Buckley: And they're having a hell of a trouble with vodka. (Laughter) (Rest

blurred in crosstalk)

Mr. Kleindienst: And they don't want another problem. ~tr. Kaplan's argument that the

old people drink, so why not~t the young people smoke marijuanalto me, I think, is one

of the straws that he grabs and ~~ocks down all the way through his book. That, to me,

is not a sufficient re~son for letting our young people get on drug culture in this

country because I drink socially, you know.

Mr. Buckley: May I say this: I think that what's going to happen is that the marijuana

laws are going to become a dead letter. But I think that anyone who asks that marijuana

be legalized in advance of the knowledge we might just get in the next two or three years

apout the strategic, especially in the psychological strategic effects of marijuana, i~,

simply irresponsible. For instance, we know about tobacco, and if we had known, say,

ten or fifteen years ago what we know now about tobacco, an awful lot of people who are now


-18-

C hooked would not be. And an awful lot of people, who are going to lightly experiment with

marijuana, may know from studies in the Academy two or three or four or five years from

now that it is going to cause grave psychic disruption about twenty or thirty years

later.

Mr. Kleindienst: Let me say this to Mr. Kaplan that if science were to demonstrate five

years from now --

Mr. Kaplan: Yes.

Mr. Kleindienst: -- and your book is quite replete with the statements that there isn't

much known about it -- there isn't this and there isn't that unless you and I agree,

~tr. Kaplan, that five years from now it could be scientifically and clinically demon

strated, you know, the precise effects both objectively and subjectively of marijuana,

and that thosescentific facts would tend to contradict what I've said here today, I hope

that I would have the humility and the good sense to say in 1970, on September 3, in

New York City, I was wrong, then I would change rny opinion. There is not that evidence

-- as a matter of fact, to me, the evidence would argue to the contrary.

~rr. Buckley: So, I see. Therefore, what you say so far you have made it contingent

based simply on what we now know.

Mr. IG.eindienst: Wnat we now know.

(

Mr. Buckley: Let me ask you this. I wrote a piece a while ago saying that nobody had

come through with any really interesting way of keeping people from taking drugs. I

got a letter from a doctor who said that in fact there was experimentation going on about

which very little has been written on the matter of effective immunology -- the idea

being that as a child they might develop a way in the next ten or twelve years to inject

that child in sort of a perpetual anti-abuse, that would keep him ever fronl either desir

ing marijuana, or being able to metabolize it, or hungry for it, or whatever. Would you

consider this an ideal solution, both of you?

y~. Kaplan: Well, if we did, I would use it on alcohol, too.

Mr •. Bucluey: I didn't ask you that.


(-19-

Mr. Kaplan: Yes, I suppose I would if it were practicable. But I know this much,

that the long-run consequences of meddling with people's biochemistry against their

will may turn out to be very unpleasant. It's just like people who have been upset

about fluoridation -- I think about thishuman

Mr. Buckley: (Laughs) The long-run consequences of meddling with/biochemistry with

their will is also (crosstalk)

Mr. Kaplan: And I regard that as a crucial distinction. It seems to me that what

a man does with his -- (crosstalk)

Mr. Buckley: We won't go into philosophy now, since we have to go off the air in one

second, did I understand you to say that you would back compulsory inoculation of children,

say, at the age of 6, assuming a life-long serwu were discovered?

14r. Kaplan: If we could make it a serum that would also work against heroin. In other

(~ words, if it really worked. If it worked only against marijuana, I have a feeling that

that would just increase the heroin addiction rate.

(Station Break)

Mr. Buckley: You want to say something briefly before we turn to the panel?

Mr. Kaplan: Yes, two things. I'm not going to tell your audience about the slave masters

in the Kre~~in and their evil designs on us. But I do think that it's relevant to talk

about the fact that if you have a police state anyway, and you're going to be searching

people's houses for political literature anyway, why, then, it makes greatrense to bar

the use of any kind of drug -- indeed,. I'm surprised they haven't done the same thing

with alcohol; they could enforce it. But, if you don't have a police state, you have

to balance the enforceability of a law, the cost it imposes on society's life, plus the

harm this substance does. Now, we are in the situation where, frankly, we are going to

be forced to a choice. The marijuana laws are ~enforceable, and they will always be

( unenforceable, unless we either legalize it the way we do with alcohol, or go into a

police state, which we may have to do for other reasons. But I certainly would have to

think of doing it just for marijuana. Now, the other thing about this -- this is very© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

(

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-20-interesting, if you want children and young people to stop using marijuana, which I

would like to, it seems to me you can do it only by a number of things:. one is, if you

tell them the truth -- I think many people will stop using marijuana~ at least young

people. But the point is, as long as education is seen as the handmaid of law enforce-

ment, then it loses a great deal of credibility in young people's eyes •. And if you

took the position with young people that you're too young, it will harm you -- that is

a very sensible position. But you cannot take it at the same time you if you're over

40, of course, and we catch you, we'll throw you in jail, too. In other words, you

can only communicate with young people when you're honest with them -- and telling them

you can't use marijuana because you're too young, your father can't use it because we

don't want him to -- is some very great problem you're going to have in teaching people.

Mr. Buckley: Mr. Greenfield.

Mr. Greenfield: Mr. Kleindienst, one of the differences I've always thought between

our slave masters in the Kremlin and those in Washington -- even would-be authoritarians

-- is that I still have the right to --

Mr. Kleindienst: I don't accept your premise that we have slave masters in Washington.

~~. Greenfield: No, I didn't say that.

~tr. Kleindienst: Oh.

Mr. Greenfield: I said slave masters in the Kremlin and would-be authoritarians in

l'iashington.

Mr. Kleindienst: Oh, oh.

Mr. Greenfield: -- is that I still have the right to tell

Mr. Buckley: Slave masters mockee? (Last word unclear)

Mr. Greenfield: Yes, slave masters mockee~(still unclear) I still have the right

to tell the would-be authoritarians that, except for external effects, it is none of

their damn business how I get my kicks -- that's usually a libertarian principle.

Now, what interests me is that you, like Vice President Agnew in one of his recent


-21-

Mr. Kleindienst: I disagree with that last statement

Mr. Greenfield: Yes, -- I'd think you would.

Mr. Kleindienst: Just for the record, I don't.

Mr. Greenfield: One of Vice President's recent encyclicals makes the same liquor-

drug distinction you do, claiming inaccurately that every civilization has banned

drugs, and every civilization has allowed alcohol. What puzzles me is, your descrip-

tion of social drinking. I've spent a year working in the Senate and watched Congressmen

and Senators stagger to the floor, with their perceptions distinctly dim,to vote on

drug laws. Now,·--

Mr. Buckley: To pass Democratic legislation.Witty, but unfortunately inaccurate.

Mr. Greenfield: No, both sides. (Laughter - Applause)/It crossed the ideological fence,

Mr. Buckley~

( Mr. Buckley: Bi-partisan (unclear words in crosstalk)

Mr. Kleindienst: Let me say in defense of the Congress of the United States, you might

have seen one Senator or one Congressman

~rr. Greenfield: More more.

Mr. Kleindienst: -- but the conduct of the United States Congress is not that of

drunkenness on the floor of the United States -- (Crosstalk)

(

Mr. Greenfield: Oh, you haven't read the Congressional Record recently. But the point

is, your description of social drinking, for instance, is rebutted every day in high class

restaurants, not only on the wicked Eastern seaboard, but I would wager even in the heart-

land.

Mr. Buckley: He's not denying there are alcoholics.

Mr. Greenfield: And my point is --

Mr. Kleindienst: There are too may alcoholics.

Mr. Buckley: Certainly there are.

Mr. Greenfield: But my point is, your description of social drinking -- you know, five


(

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22.

martinis are not that much out of line for some of the jokers that -- at least that I see.

And I cannot understand this constant unwillingness to distinguish between the way the

middle-aged neurotics get their kicks and perhaps young neurotics get their kicks.

Mr. Kleindienst: I think what I'm really trying to say is, and it goes to what Mr.

Kaplan said, I believe in education in this thing. And in terms of the social cost,

Mr. Kaplan, I think 1'd rather pay the cost to keep it down here than get it up there.

But I really believe I think in takipg every conceivable step possible to see to it that

the young people put off having their kicks, if that's the way you want to describe it,

until later. I Want 15, 16, 17 and 18 year-old young men and women to learn directly

and not vicariously, so that when they get to be 50, they will develop themselves into

sound, mature people. So I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I'll pay the cost

in this society to make it impossible, if not extremely difficult, for my chUdren, all

( of the young children here and in this country to have access to alcohol and drugs.

I think that's what I'm really saying.

Mr. Buckley: Hr. Loring.

(

Mr. Loring: Mr. Kleindienst, you use some confusing terms in a sense of costs of society

or we don't want a drug culture, but when you get through it, aren't you really sort of

interposing your morality into the issue? Doesn't an individual, let's say, ultimately

have the right to -- (crosstalk)

Mr. Kleindienst: My morality -- I'm a Christian, and a Christian doesn't judge anybody,

and Christianity has nothing to do with drugs. That's the only morality I have.

Mr. Loring: Yes, but when you speak of a drug culture -- that there are clearly individuals

within the culture -- there are individuals who would like to take drugs, and you're

interposing your morality

Mr. Kleindienst: I don't call it morality. I think it's the pragmatics of life. It's

the pragmatics of a vibrant, strong, highly motivated society that has a means by whi~h


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-23-

through its eternal vigilance it protects its freedom. That, to me, is not morality,

those are pragmatics of freedom.

~tr. Lori~g: Can an individual live within your society, then, who doesn't fit that

mold'?

Mr. IG.eindienst: Some could, but if we made it easy for a substantial number of our

people to adopt as part of their pragmatical aspect of life a drug culture, I think it

would tend to weaken our country.

~tr. Greenfield: Why don't you ban television?

Mr. IG.eindienst: -- and if we weaken our country, then I think that we lose b~e means

by which through vigilance we protect our freedom. That's what concerns me, really.

~tr. Ardery: Mr. IG.eindienst, by consenting to be on this show, I think that all of us

take on a very serious responsibility. And that responsibility is to do the best with

the tools we have to arrive at the truth --

Mr. IG.eindienst: Yes.

~~. Ardery: -- to give the audience, the audience in the studio here and the peo~e

watching their television sets, and the main tool that we have is words. And of all

the people I've seen on this show, you really use words worse than anybody else, you

know.

Mr. Kleindienst: I'm sorry to hear you say that.

Mr. A~dery: You just don't elicit -- you don't try to use them honestly.

Mr. Buckley: Ask the question -- ask the question.

Mr. Kleindienst: I think my presence here indicated, however, that I was willing to

submit myself to questions and to engage in a dispute -- in a debate and a dialogue,

so if I disappointed you with the kind of --

Mr. Ardery: Well, you've engaged on your side, but you haven't let yourself be

engaged by other people, you know. You're waiting to answer all the time -- you

aren't listening to what people are asking.

Mr. Kleindienst: Well, I take that criticism, and I appreciate it very much.© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

•

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( Mr. Greenfield: Could I ask a question?

Mr. Buckley: Yes.

Mr. Greenfield: Maybe this is at the heart of the question -- is it the right of a

government to demand of its citizens that they be highly motivated upon penalty of law?

Mr. Kleindienst: I don't know if it's their right to demand that they be highly

motivated. I think the -- a government in a free society has the obligation and has

the lawful means by which to say we will not deliberately put things in your hands that

could interfere with the desire to be motivated.

Mr. Greenfield: But this is critical because every night on television I see commercials

for sleeping pills in which the husband blithely says to the wife, slip me the Sleepeze,

baby, or honey, which is supposed to knock you out. There are so many things in this

society that people use to turn themselves off, that the question has come down in many

(peoples minds the idea that the government, not your Administration, but the government

in general,has determined that a particular way of turning on -- of being~ss highly

motivated -- that is favored by a certain part of the population -- is to be rejected

while all the others feel to be allowed. It makes no sense to me as a sort of libertarian.

~rr. Kleindienst: In a relative sense it does to me when you're dealing with a dangerous

drug.

Mr. Buckley: ~1r. Kaplan.

~rr. Kaplan: One thing that this reminds me of, which struck me when I first started

investigating marijuana laws, is that it reminds me verf much of the'Murders in the Rue

"Morgue where the identification of the voice was.A Frenchman said· it certainly wasn't

(

French he was speaking, it was German. And the German said it certainly wasn't German,

it was Italian. And the Italian said it certainly wasn't Italian, I'm sure it was French.

And, of course, it was an orangutan who spoke none of these languages. What happened

when you looked into the marijuana laws is that they were passed because they turned

people into homicidal maniacs. Now, that justification fell apart. Then, the laws

were justified on the ground that they lead to heroin. We now have discovered that


0( • r

-25-

( it does lead to heroin primarily because by making it illegal, we've turned the marketing

of the drugs over to the same people in great part. Then it led to psychic dependence,

and they discovered that the amount of psychic dependence, although it existed, was

considerably less than that on alcohol. Indeed I disagree with David Smith; I would

place that the rate of alcoholics is much greater than 5% in our culture and that

potheads are less than 5%, though, of course, he would say 5% potheads'simply because

he's in the Haight-Ashbury section.

Mr. Buckley: Yes, but the point is -- (crosstalk)

Mr. Kaplan: But the point is that now we have a new one --

Mr. Buckley: Mr. Kaplan, what you are saying in effect is that people continue to find

different reasons to defend the same laws, but it is also true that they are finding

things out every day about tobacco, which has been around for three hundred years. So~

it's altogether possible that these continuing insights concerning marijuana precisely

,

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,establish that nobody really knows quite enough about it -- and that's what the residual

question is: ought we in effect license and, therefore, officially to encourage use of

a drug about which we know so little.

Thank you very much -- I'm awfully sorry (as Mr. Kaplan begins to comment). Thank

you, Hr. Kleindienst, very much -- Ladies and Gentlemen.

* * * * * * *


Documents

de~ - Digital Collections Home · -2---to talk about marijuana as a thing, and then talk about it as it'srelated to the law. Mr. Buckley: Well, why don't we try then, in at least