“Whether or not marijuana is a more dangerous drug than alcohol is debatable. I don’t happen to think it is.” In light of the current debate about marijuana, the remark was unremarkable—except that it was made by Dr. James Goddard, head of the Food and Drug Administration. It came after a lecture on “business decisionmaking” at the University of Minnesota’s Graduate School of Business Administration. Leading into the question-and-answer period, Goddard said he would talk about anything but marijuana. But the first question was about the drug, and Goddard proceeded to break his own rule.
Would he object to his son or daughter using marijuana? “We’ve discussed this at home,” said Goddard. “I would object in terms of the law today and any possible long-term effects.” Discounting the suggestion made by some authorities that pot leads to an addiction to other, stronger drugs, Goddard explained that while “it is true most heroin users have smoked marijuana, it is also true that most heroin users have drunk milk. I have seen no proof that there is any connection.”
Goddard’s opinion, which carries considerably more weight than that of any private physician, was particularly surprising because the FDA director has been so strict in demanding that drug companies show clear proof of the efficacy and safety of their products before he allows them on the market. There is still almost no research, however, into what marijuana does—and does not do—to the human mind and body and no scientific evidence that proves or disproves that it is better or worse than alcohol.
Thus the FDA director was in the contradictory position of approving—if only off the cuff—a drug that has not had thorough scientific inspection. He had previously complained that American families waste money on unneeded vitamin pills and had roundly condemned children’s candy cigarettes—which he thinks might lead them eventually to the real thing. Last week, though he later qualified his remarks enough to note the legal and possible long-term hazards of marijuana, Goddard’s basic equation of pot and liquor still stood. Immediate outrage followed. Among the most incensed was Dr. Robert W. Baird, director of the Haven narcotics clinic in Harlem and chairman of the Suffolk County (N.Y.) narcotics-control commission. Dr. Goddard, said Dr. Baird, has done “irreparable damage across the college campuses as well as in the high schools.”
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