President Nixon believes that the law should punish pot smokers. Thus it has been widely assumed that because nine of its 13 members* are Nixon appointees, the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse would rubber-stamp Administration views when it made, its recommendations to Congress. Last week, when the gist of the group's still unpublished report leaked out a month early, the skeptics were amazed. After a year of study, the commission has decided that criminal penalties for possession and for private use of marijuana should be entirely abolished.
Some of the key...