THE DRUGGED NATION: A ""Narc's"" Story

The sobriquet ""Narc"" conjures up a muscle-bellied, suet-necked, paunch-minded, dope-hating tough who works the Government late shift and who'd as soon kick in your teeth (might be shit in them molars) as show his badge which anyway is more than likely extralegally pinned to his American-flag jockey shorts. Rest easy, juicers -- for though Mr. Finlator (retired Deputy Director of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) doesn't exactly defend the freak culture, he is a thinking Narc who realizes that the problem can't be solved by breaking heads or putting users in the can for possession of an ounce or so of stuff. In fact, the most encouraging part of his book -- principally an insider's recapitulation of the mismanaged and very political Nixon drug control efforts (so what else is new?) -- is his recommendation that marijuana be first decriminalized and eventually legalized; as Finlator says, we have the evidence (the U.S. Marijuana Commission Reports, the Canadian Le Dain Commission findings, etc. -- he also cites Grinspoon and the Consumers Union's more recent Licit and Illicit Drugs, KR, 1972) and, if we are to avoid ""a real national disaster within this decade, we must move to make the social use of marijuana legal."" There are also Bureau case histories aplenty, comments on the schools and drags, and recommendations for getting the bigtime junkmen off the streets in this interesting talk from an ex-Narc.