Drug education programs must account for the values of the students at whom such education is directed. Students' commitments to fairness, consistency, compassion, and reasonableness must be honored.
The marijuana laws run counter to these commitments. Arguments about its harm are unsound, and rights to presumptive innocence, equal protection, and security from excessive punishment are compromised.
Laws regarding heroin are still more destructive and unsupportable. Virtually all harms resulting from heroin use are a direct result of the existence and enforcement of the law.
Society's laws run counter to students' values, making the role of the drug educator difficult if not impossible.
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References
1.
Richard Blum and Associates, Society and Drugs. San Francisco: Jossey and Bass, 1970, Vol. II, p. 367.
2.
Interim Report of the N. Y. State Temporary State Commission on Campus Unrest, The Legislature, Albany, 1970.
3.
SchurEdwin, Crime Without Victims. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965.
4.
Interim and Final Reports of the Joint Committee of the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association on Narcotic Drugs. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961, p. 165.
5.
Ibid.
6.
CheinIsidoreGerardDonald L.LeeRobert S., and RosenfeldEva, The Road to HNew York and London: Basic Books, 1964, p. 6.
7.
Ibid.
8.
SchurEdwin, Crime Without Victims. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965.
9.
CheinIsidoreGerardDonald L.LeeRobert S., and RosenfeldEva, The Road to HNew York and London: Basic Books, 1964, p. 6.
10.
DavisVirginia E. and WalshMichael J., “Alcohol, Amines, and Alkaloids: A Possible Biochemical Basis for Alcohol Addiction,”Science, Feb. 13, 1970.
