4
Thursday, February 17, 1972
University Daily Kansan
The National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abus has decided unanimously to recon mend the repeal of all criminal penalties for the private use and posses ion of marijuana.
Pass the Grass
The commission report w as to have gone to the printers Wednesday and will be released soon o the public.
After a year-long study of 50 reports and testimony in 10 he rings and four private sessions the commission reached its decis on. It was based on three point : — Marijuana has not been prove to be addictive and cannot be shown to be physically or psycholoically harmful, after long use. It does not appear to lead to the use of hard drugs. Use of marijuana apparently does no t lead to crime.
Although the panel's recorder mentions do represent a step toward a rational approach to marijuana, the report is not without a weakness: It still favors criminal penalties or the rule of the drug, even mong friends.
Even so, the report mu st be considered a milestone ir the
modernization of archaic drug-abuse laws. In two states, an offender can still receive a 20-year prison sentence on a first conviction for the use of marijuana. In Houston, a young man is serving a 30-year sentence for giving marijuana cigarettes to an undercover agent. In Virginia, an 18-year-old high school boy was given a 20-year sentence for smoking marijuana. What happens now will largely up to President Nixon. If he accepts report and recommends its implementation, we will be well on the way to updating our drug-abuse statutes.
This is the logical action for Nixon, of the thirteenth commission members.
However, if Nixon decides that the politically prudent thing to do is to reject the commission report, we know what will happen: the death of another conscientious reform effort. The time and effort of the commissioners as well as the taxpayer's money will have been wasted. And everybody will have lost.
Garry Wills
Mike Moffet Associate Editor
While some hat overshadowed, rest assured
that I t think that I am still here!"
Letters to the editor *s*ould be typewritten, double-spaced and should
be in a formal tone. In case of condemnation, according to spa
limitations and the editor's judgment, students must provide the
r name, year in school and home town; faculty
and staff must provide the their name and position; others must provide
their name.
Letter Policy
Nixon's Secret Negotiations
"The Vietnamese war will be settled at secret high-level negotiations." That is what Richard Nixon said when he was running for President. He was commenting on his own admiration for Woodrow Wilson. He said his greatest inspiration with Wilson was on the principle "open covenants, openly arrived at."
Nikon prides himself on knowing what the score is in a term game, but he knew how the Vietnam war could be settled—by a secret bargain, preferably including the United States.
"The Johnson administration has boxed itself in where it can't undertake these," he insisted. "But a new one could and would."
Well, his recent telecast proves that the new administration couldn't, and didn't, settle the war in private sessions. When one understands that the principle of secret diplomacy is a critical element of the important items on which he has regularly differed from his hero—then the real gravity of Nikon's publishing
He had to say, of course, that he published the history of his cover, as a manifestation of things off dead center. But that is boo-boo (as Menken used to say). For a Nixon to give up on secret negotiations matters, to give up on negotiations themselves. He does not "blow his cover" to advance the discussion, but to expose the facts.
our past efforts at negotiation becomes manifest.
Yet this does not mean that Nixon is only answering domestic critics, at the cost of future diplomatic possibilities with Hanoi. It is a sign of the weak democratic leadership. Democratic critics are simultaneously easy on him (granting that the secret terms are at least reasonable, if not generous), and too harsh (saying he has nothing in mind but his electoral campaign, come what may on the war front).
The truth, as usual, is more subtle. If Nixon confessed the failure of direct negotiation with Hanoi, it was—I am sure he did not apparently apparent to him, and because he believed the American public should not be a victim to any illusions about this hard fact. People have consistently denied that knowing he is an蜀, capable of any evil.
His critics are wrong when they say he has bargained in bad faith or compounded an insincere process by
betraying the trust of secrecy. Unless the secrecy is to national advantage, unless hears as our leader in maintaining it. And when he truly thinks it has served (or, rather failed) its purpose, he is required to give an account of that fact.
No, Nikon's fault has not been in revealing the secret. Nor has it been in trying the secret path of negotiation.
revealing the secret. Nor has it been in trying the secret path of negotiation. His fault is a much deeper one, that few of his political rivals can illuminate because they, too, have indulged in it one way or other. Nixon has failed by being in a position to bargain atall, whether publicly or privately. We aren't.
Talks, secret or open, are useless to those who cannot see the obvious. And the obvious has been, for a long time, that we have nothing to gain in Vietnam because we have stayed there, the worse off we have become; that, consequently, there is no credible quid we can offer for a face-saving quo. The negotiations have not failed because they are open or correct; so we have nothing commensurate to pounce against Vietnamese intrangeness about their own land and about all the dead who have fought to make it their own. To strike a favorable bargain, you need a position of vantage. And we have to work did. And we are tools to think we did.
Copyright,1972 Universal Press Syndicate
James J. Kilpatrick
Senate Debate Lingers
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate has been locked in debate for almost a month on an issue as to whether the obstacle pending bill having to do with the Employment Commission (EEO), may be disposed of this week. The Issue may remain. It merits your thought.
The debate centers on an effort led by Sens. Harrison Williams of New Jersey and Jacob Javits of Pennsylvania to commission with power to enforce its findings by issuance of cease-and-desist orders. A conservative coalition, led by Bob Duck of Colorado, is opposing the move.
Here, we touch the bedrock of our philosophy. If the founding father's had a chief motivation, it was their hostility to the federal centralized government. King George had refused to assent to
"laws for establishing judiciary powers." Instead, he had "erected a multitude of new offices and sent his twarows of officers to harass our people." Once the Revolution was won, a Constitution sought to prevent or prevent a recurrence of the evils.
Two principles emerged. The first was federalism, by which political powers would be dispersed to the state or the one hand and among the separate States on the other. The second was separation of powers—the concept that, by separating the executive, the legislative, and the political powers of the central government, the old abuses might be avoided.
Both principles have eroded with time. The Senate's current debate goes directly to the question, Shall the doctrine of separation of powers be further eroded? Senate liberals are
cheerfully. agreeable: the Javids-Watkins bill would make of the EEOC a combined executive and judicial agency. conservative are stoutly resisting judges' judgments alone to do the judging.
Liberals make this case: more than a dozen executive agencies, notably the National Labor Council, call for the power to issue binding cease-and-desist orders. Such orders result from the findings of professional hearing examiners. The Senate's Procedures Act provides abundant safeguards of due process of law. In any event, final orders are subject to judicial review and the courts are sorely burdened, with heavy backlogs and long delays, judges should not be further burdened by the trial of cases burrowing discrimination in employment.
Conservatives respond that the EECO, with a backlog of 32,000 cases, is more burdened than the courts. Even if an independent agency could function as prosecutor, judge and jury. The very nature of the EECO makes impartial judicial review the commission and its staff have a built-in bias toward minorities. Judicial review is severely limited by the practice of routinely affirming cease-and-desist evidence" supports them.
At the heart of this disagreement is the difference that eternally divides liberal and conservative beliefs to trust government and to urge that its powers be expanded, the conservative looks for government with a wary eye and asks its power be restrained.
This is what the fight is all about. If the liberals prevail, the EEOC will become one of the most powerful agencies in informing laborers more than the National Labor Relations Board, which is confined to areas of organized labor. Its coercive authority includes discrimination (by reason of race, sex or religion) in both public and private employment, in small business as well as large. Proponents agree that a vast new law that will have to be created.
Fortunately, the House already has voted, though narrowly, against this expansion of power. Nixon opposes the Williams-Javits bill, but he opposes it only on a few occasions exceedingly close. Philosophically, the two sides are at least 200 years apart.
Copyright, 1972, Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
Readers Respond
Bible
To the Editor
Sisters; Song; Bible Quotes ...
With carefully selected quotations from any book one can "prove" almost anything. The Bible is been quoted, and misquoted, and misinterpreted to prove or support all kinds of theories and systems, including that "punctual" slavery in the United States.
be hoped that they can find such sources.
With regard to women's liberation and the Bible, we find, for instance, that in the Book of Proverbs characterized as being female. Corinthians states that man is not independent of man, nor man is independent of woman. For as woman was born in the same way man is born of woman.
**Quotation** can be found to refute quote, ad infinitum. One would think that opposition to quotes is another other issue, could be found in sources which are not as self-contradictory as the Bible. If Messrs. Kreins and Chester were wrong, we could say (let us hope they were not) it is to
Margaret Todd
Smena sophomore
Nusan Yowell
Dean King
Deann King
Stockton sophomore
Anita Gram
St. Joseph, Mo., son
camp
Smena junior
have consistently distorted occurrences and obscured the aims and needs of women at the University of Kansas.
I believe the Sisters should be given guest editorial space in the organization, tell their audience organization, as generously provided with student money as they have Kansan-could surely press the issue of constituency more accurately.
Protest
To the Editor:
Ric Hollerar Lawrence
The attacks on the Sisters are doubly unfair since none of them can make individual replies to the sniper by the Kansan.
I would like to register my protest against the slanted and prejudiced coverage of the sisters in the columns of the Kansan
Coverage has ranged from misunderstanding appearing sympathetic (Mike Hoefer) editorial Feb. 8 to cowardly lip reading to women liberation (Chip Cressi editorial Feb. 9, 1972).
Accounts in the news columns
Lyrics
To the Editor:
As you know, one of the most closely guarded secrets of the 20th century concerns the lyrics and their skill. Hereof these lyrics were jealously guarded by the nine people who had sole knowledge of the words; James McCain, Billy Corbat, Matthew Barrett, athletic director; Erie Barrett, Jr., captain and bench warmer of the freshman baskettle teams; two members of the team western Kansas manure
shoveler;  Lucifer (no last name); Fred White; and Richard M. Nixon.
The last-named being the most easily accessible source from which I can access guarded secret. I successfully acquired the services of Henry Kissinger's young son with a hatchback. He was Hersher's bar, a red hunting hat, and three dollars in unmarked nickel coins for information in my possession.
Not wishing to waste time and space by divulging other less important facts surrounding my teammates, I am that with many K.U. fans preparing to follow the Jayahwk basketball team to Manhattan on Friday night subjected to the strains of K-State's fight song countless
times, I feel that it is only fitting that this be the time to release my findings so than more K. U. can sing along if they so desire.
Knowing full well that I may be subject to prosecution for leaking the information, I feel that it is my moral obligation to do so, present them here in
"Every 'Cat a Dog'
K-State might be missouri.
The Cowboy of O'Sate
and put the Buffs in check;
And put the Buffs in check;
The Cyclones and the Huskers,
Some one Big-Eight foo too,
They get stomped by Blue Sea.
Mark W. Robinett Kansas City Senior
Griff and the Unicorn
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
By Sokoloff
America's Pacemaking college newspaper
"Copyright 1972, David Sokoloff."
NEWS STAFF
News Adviser . . . Del Brinkman
Editor
Associate Editor
Campus Editor
Copy Editors
Copy Chiefs
Sports Editor
Feature Editor
Writer Editors
Wife Editors
Wife Writers
Photographers
Office Manager
Carbonite
Chile Crews
Michael Monroe
Hila Hauser Shaughn
Rita Hauser Shaughn
Jovece Newman, Rob Klina
Sally Carlo Newman
Rob Slimson
Barbara Quackenbock
Joyce Dawkins
Dick Hey, Goodfellow
Ed Lel弓, Kit Netter
Greg Sorber, Tom Thucas
Touki Nezhad
BUSINESS STAFF
Business Adviser . . . Mel Adams
Business Manager
Associate Marketing Manager
Advertising Manager
Advertising Manager
National Advertising Manager
National Advertising Manager
Promotional Advertising Manager
Promotional Advertising Manager
Carol Young
Assistant Marketing Manager
Norman Melees
Marketing Manager
Date Fingerprinter
Date Fingerprinter
Date Fingerprinter
Dave Murray
Dave Murray
REPRESENTED FOR NATIONAL ADVERTISING BY
National Educational Advertising Services
A DIVISION OF
READER'S DIRECTOR'S SERVICES, INC.
380 Lexington Ave., New York, N. Y. 10017