by Craig Reinarman

About the author: Craig Reinarman is a professor of sociology and legal studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the coeditor (with Harry G. Levine) of Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice.

In 1972, after an exhaustive study by a team of top experts, President Richard Nixon’s hand-picked National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommended decriminalization of marijuana. Five years later, President Jimmy Carter and many of his top cabinet officials made the same recommendation to Congress. Both the Commission and the Carter administration felt that the “cure” of imprisonment was worse than the “disease” of marijuana use. U.S. drug control officials argued strenuously that Congress should ignore such recommendations, which it did.

At about the same...