Doug McVay, Editor of the Common Sense for Drug Policy's Drug War Facts Book, handed over some goodies to Gene Weingarten at the Washington Post:
Just What Was He Smoking?.

But an even more interesting story (as McVay explained it to me -- wealth of knowledge that guy!) -- isn't merely the plethora of amusing quotes (and there's more where that came from!), but rather that Nixon comissioned the Shafer report to give drugs a bad name. Then, much to Nixon's dismay, the Commission actually did right by the American people and provided the objective analysis it was supposed to provide: and recommended decriminalization :-)

More on the details of the report and its significance in the days to come.

For now, let the dog and pony show begin:

In an excruciating sequence from Sept. 9, 1971, Nixon is meeting with former Pennsylvania governor Raymond P. Shafer. Shafer heads a presidential commission on drug policy that Nixon has heard might be flirting with the notion of recommending the decriminalization of marijuana...

...Nixon is on a roll, lecturing like a history professor:

"Do you know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. . . . You know what happened to the popes? It's all right that popes were laying the nuns."

Someone laughs nervously. Nixon bulls on, not a hint of humor in his voice.

"That's been going on for years, centuries, but when the popes, when the Catholic Church went to hell in, I don't know, three or four centuries ago, it was homosexual. . . . Now, that's what happened to Britain, it happened earlier to France. And let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn it, they root them out, they don't let 'em hang around at all. You know what I mean? I don't know what they do with them."

"Dope? Do you think the Russians allow dope? Hell no. Not if they can catch it, they send them up. You see, homosexuality, dope, uh, immorality in general: These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing it. They're trying to destroy us."

Well, that was 31 years ago, and I am happy to report that the Jew-homo-doper-Commie-shrink-lefty-pope cabal has not, to date, destroyed us. Nixon seems to have been wrong on this one.

Of course, it's not the first time he was wrong. Yes, he was a crook. No, it wasn't a third-rate burglary. And yes -- we do still have Dick Nixon to kick around. Apparently, thanks to his tapes, forever and ever and ever.