The Strange Case of Pot

Ignorance, prejudice and even envy have led to the explosive animus against a [at the time] new and widespread activity – the smoking of the drug cannabis. The Wootton Commission was set up to discover it implications, only to be condemned by politicians and newspapers long before its findings were published. The introduction of tobacco, tea and new cannabis took western society quite by surprise. On this occasion it has instituted a witch-hunt. Michael Schofield (1919-2014) was a pioneer of social research who served on the Government Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence (chaired by Barbara Wootton) that published the Wootton Report - the report on cannabis which suggested that the legal penalties were far too severe – published in 1969 in the United Kingdom. In this clear and considered account he examines the escalation theory (from cannabis to harder drugs), cannabis and crime, the law and police discretion, and the case for and against the legalization of ‘pot’. As relevant today as it was in 1971.