Parks And People: Dope (1970s?)

We've had sort of an infamous murder case down here which involved seven, eight, and nine young girls who were hacked up with uh and butchered, you might say. And it turned out the man found guilty was constantly on drugs. And the hippies they're not good for anything. They brought some marijuana in. Did they give it to your people? They gave it to some of our boys. The main problem right now is probably narcotics. I consider marijuana a harmful drug. Marijuana is not a drug. It is not a narcotic. It is not addicting as a narcotic is addicting, you see. Narcotics addict and you become hung up on them. There is a lot of research that's done that tends to prove that people who start out on marijuana may graduate to more hard drugs later on. Some people control it just like some people control alcohol. We used to make busts on beer all the time. That was the big thing on underage drinkers, but now uh when marijuana come in, well, then beer became something that really wasn't too much of a problem anymore. We decided that underage drinking wasn't quite as bad as smoking marijuana. And of course, marijuana was nothing near as bad as taking some of the harder harder narcotics. The drug situation up here has been in the past almost a an open market. Marijuana smoking, pot smoking is is very prevalent among among all of the young people in this area. On occasion, we've had narcotics pushed in the area on a very large scale. Usually marijuana or hashish that's sold for profit after dances or in the evenings or back in the employee lounge areas. This is not uncommon in this area. Marijuana are usually is most marijuana cases are usually juveniles. Uh persons under 18. Hell yes, they're going to smoke pot. There's tremendous peer pressure. Anything anybody has to sell that's illegal, immoral, or fattening, they'll do it and love it. I feel that most of our drugs are coming from Mexico probably. Coming across the Mexican border and then being brought up here by probably the long hair element or even other people. I understand that Lake Mead is one of the dropping points for narcotics. If I were a drug user, I can think of probably no better place than to go back up over the dunes and getting in one of the back beach areas uh where you can be relatively safe that they're not going to be somebody coming over the dunes after you. There's so many places within the the seashore, and I imagine within any national park where they're relatively free from prying eyes. I know there's drugs here, and I know that there's there's uh people taking them, but I myself haven't just personally run into a lot of cases. They don't smoke it openly naturally. In my view, with being a uniform man, they they wouldn't do that. But uh I know it's here, you know. The marijuana scene is not controlled, I don't believe, by any one organization as the hard drugs may be. Uh the importation of it into the country, I think, is done far more on a on a larger scale than it has ever been. People who who never would have engaged in it before or in it now. It's no longer fashionable to sell or use drugs as much as it was. It's still prevalent. It's still a a serious problem. But it isn't the in thing. You don't have to now and still belong to a peer group. We find a lot of teenagers smoking marijuana. I have some cases of uh heroin addicts using the park, too, to uh sell and to also as users. Boulder Beach is having sometimes as high as seven narcotics busts a week. And we aren't having any. We come close to some that we're we're fairly certain of. What we are trying to determine now is whether we are being spared this or whether or not we're not covering the area thoroughly enough to see it. With the recent training that we had the drug training school at Ozark this past winter it made us realize that uh that we had a much greater drug problem here than than uh we were aware of simply because we we had not had the training prior to that course to be alert to what to look for. The only way the government or the rangers can react to the situation is by providing law enforcement and protection to the for the people. Actually kind of uh to provide protection against themselves. I never seen anybody on marijuana that bad. LSD, maybe. Sometimes from the underground newspapers you get articles written uh which uh feature uh LSD as a a means of increasing your appreciation for Grand Canyon, especially for the psychedelic effect. Whatever excitement they get from uh viewing Grand Canyon through LSD sometimes work to their disadvantage because they'll fall off the trail or wherever they're at uh when they're under the influence of LSD, so the trip isn't uh really worthwhile. Most of the people we catch that I've been busting in cars, we found out that most of them are heroin addicts and they are using this car busting as a source of getting revenue to buy buy heroin. After talking to him, he will state that he had uh $75 to $80 a day habit, which means he has to steal about four or $500 worth of uh property and sell it at a discounted price to get his uh $75. My kids are better schooled in drugs than I am. My fifth grader can give you the list of pills that she can buy. One way of looking at it is that the the parks don't differentiate between hard drugs and marijuana and the kids do cuz the kids who have gone through most of this realize there's a big difference. And they realize that people behave differently. A person on marijuana is is very passive and he's going to sit around and and just and enjoy life generally. A person who is is dropping amphetamine pills is and and if he's drinking wine at the same time, it's really going to be be be ripping out and he's really going to be aggressive. And even the kids acknowledge that in that kind of situation, they they don't want any part of of of other people who are who are doing that. As a matter of fact, you know, uh a couple of guys in freaks in Yosemite said, "Man, we don't want any of that." We and and they referred to those people, the people dropping reds as the [ __ ] offs. The people who they wanted the protection from, too. But as far as marijuana, they see it as just a mild experience. And so, they get a bit disillusioned um when the park police uh and the park rangers and the administration puts everything in the same category. And so, you get right back to this whole labeling thing. Oh, those goddamn pigs, they they they just see us all as as dope fiends when we're not doing anything worse than than than what they are drinking. Marijuana isn't uh isn't what you call a big deal. No, not to us. At one time it was, but now it's not because it's commonplace. And uh I found I haven't found that uh any cases of uh where a person that was under marijuana was tripped out or out of his head or would say uh was more violent uh something that maybe he would normally be. He might be high. But I've never I've never seen any cases where he was actually where you can say tripped out of his head. You know, there are laws which say you can't do this. But these are the kind of laws which relate to a person and a person's treatment of himself. Uh the kid puffing grass is doing no harm to anyone other than himself. And I'm not sure that it's our role to uh send rangers out into the uh underbrush and uh peering for kids who are puffing grass. No, it doesn't bother me, you know. I have seen in a campground where kids will take a bottle of wine, pass it around, and drop all sorts of pills into it, shake it up, and then they'll pass the bottle around, everybody takes a drink out of it. You know, well, there's no telling, you know, what kind of a dynamite you've got in this bottle when you see this thing going. Uh we've had um treatment in our park hospitals of kids who were in drug-induced comas. So, it's something with which, you know, we've got to have a genuine concern. Uh if the individual isn't concerned for his own welfare, you say, "Well, maybe we shouldn't be." But we're not in a position where we can say we shouldn't be. We've got to be concerned about his welfare regardless of whether he's concerned about it or not. We're obligated to be. And I don't think it's realistic to assume that uh they're going to stop using, at least the youth are going to stop using narcotics in the park anymore than they do in the city or that we should be any more uptight about them using narcotics. We shouldn't turn our back to it, but we shouldn't be solely occupied with that function where we're overlooking everything else. This business about grass, I suspect uh the police in the metropolitan area are becoming much more blasé about the way they enforce the laws dealing with marijuana than we are in the park. We think it's a cardinal sin out here. And yet uh in the city, why they they recognize that this kind of thing we aren't going to uh overcome overnight. The adult culture has been talking about the terrible sins of narcotics or particularly marijuana for many years. And the kids have found out through use that it isn't quite as bad as the adults had been telling them for years. So uh I think uh that the dope scene is is pretty much exaggerated uh as far as it's importance in relation to our law enforcement activities here. Uh I don't think we suffer a large from a large dope problem and I don't think that we should spend a great many man hours on trying to solve the problem because it really doesn't exist. I mean, I'd rather have uh a few kids blowing grass in the park than uh drinking a batch of beer and driving their cars because drinking beer and cars has always led to tragedy in the park. And uh dope hasn't. The most inherent danger to the welfare of the community is not represented by the single person who occasionally smokes marijuana, but by the members of organized crime and the so-called pushers who start a youngster off smoking marijuana and encourage him to escalate to hard drugs such as opium, otherwise called smack. And in that event, the danger is not, as I said, merely smoking marijuana, but the danger is in those who are distributing marijuana with the intent to addict the person on heroin or other hard drugs, and that's the vicious cycle that is the most dangerous one in the country. Many informed biologist and medical research experts have come to the conclusion that smoking marijuana is no less harmful and probably less harmful than drinking alcoholic beverages. Personally, it doesn't it doesn't really bother me at all. In uh uh not not to take this out of out of context, that I I think it's perfectly all right and a good idea for these young kids to uh blow their minds on marijuana. But that to the extent that if if there's no problem uh of a crime against persons or property, if they're uh smoking marijuana the same way that kids 18 or 21 drink beer, well, I don't uh I don't see that problem. And if they aren't if they aren't driving under the influence of any uh intoxicating liquor or drugs. I would say a person using marijuana and a person using alcoholic beverages would uh is very close. Uh both highs are very close. Only way I would be able to recognize this one as a difference is to uh smell alcohol on one. Actually, the end results is almost the same. I imagine that some of the people some of the young people we've dealt with in the park that have been on beer have been much more of a problem than those kids that have been on grass. I would say that uh it's open to debate. I mean, I personally, I think uh it's much too soon to say, "Well, legalize it too." Cuz really I don't think there's been enough research and enough uh uh actually finding out if it does cause uh problems. Maybe 20 years later, we might come come down with uh something similar to what cigarette industry is going through now. I personally believe it should be uh until such time as they can find that it's is injurious. Uh I think it that the uh government should uh allow it. I think that before these things get on them where they miss the boat is they they don't test these things before uh they do become widespread. They've known that marijuana has been smoked for a length of time and yet they've never really put any great effort into researching to find out whether or not it uh is harmful. I think they should have started a long time ago. They always seem to be a little late. I wouldn't want to see it legalized, at least not right now, till more medical proof can can come about that there's no harm. In In making comments, I admit I'm very biased. I said I was on the the Eisenhower Violence Commission and the report I co-authored was the first governmental staff study to ever to come out for legalized pot, and which got a lot of bad flak by many people. And this we did on the basis of the best evidence at hand and all the best scholars who were doing research for us. I wouldn't go so far as to uh uh endorse a movement to legalize marijuana. I believe the record is clear that in uh in Europe and in Asia, in countries where there is a long history and tradition of the use of marijuana and then these other derivatives similar to marijuana, that uh they have yet to legalize this use. Like I shouldn't come out and say that I think pot should be legalized, anything like that, all right? Many have asked the question as to whether or not marijuana should be legalized. The President asked a commission to investigate the problem. He responded to it by saying that he was not in favor of legalizing marijuana. There is definitely merit and great wisdom behind the President's conclusion. But viewed from another perspective, if we are to make a dent in this area of over-criminalization, that is, crimes that many feel are not crimes after all, uh alcohol uh consumption, drinking, sale of alcohol at one time was considered unlawful. There was a period of prohibition. But the people went on drinking, and again, it was legalized. As times changed, attitudes changed. There is a good argument to be made, however, for looking at many of these laws which are misdemeanors and not felonies, which in the view of many uh represent behavior which should involve the individual choice of the person who decide whether or not he wants to smoke marijuana, whether or not he wants to drink alcohol, whether or not he wants to gamble, whether or not he wants to have an affair with a woman before he marries her. In such cases as this, there is reasonable room for reform. I don't think it should be legalized. Yet on the other hand, I'm also opposed to the some of the very severe penalties that are attached to marijuana. I think the marijuana laws in the various states that it uh that are on the books should be uh not not removed, but the but the penalties changed and uh made made less than what they are. But uh the laws is in some some areas that deal with the dispo- possession uh much too strong, I think. tend to think that they need a lot of uh serious thought given to them. Uh possibly now they are overly stringent. Uh probably they should be reviewed closely with a eye to change. Uh as far as having uh any real personal acts to grind, I don't. I tend to think it's somewhat akin to prohibition and uh to a certain extent that uh it's an individual decision. Yet it is a law and uh we're paid to enforce the law reasonably and intelligently. Well, the recent law passed in DC, I think is uh a just law because it gives the the pusher uh guaran- guaranteed a certain length of time where a user is uh can be uh put on probation or can be sent to a hospital. Texas, you can get uh life in prison imprisonment for the use of marijuana. The severity of the penalty should match the um severity of the crime. And to my in my opinion, I believe it's fair right now, penalty versus the crime. I can't tell you exactly the fine. But it's 1 year for possession, first offense. Most of the court cases that are brought uh before the district court here end in uh suspended sentences and probation. I can't recall anybody being sent to jail for being present where marijuana has been found or for using. Uh as far as the user or the person that just has a small amount on him is concerned, they probably should get Well, they usually do get a suspended sentence now. Actually, which I think is fine. But anytime you got somebody pushing, I think they ought to he ought to get the uh a sentence which uh is to the limit of the law, shall we say. I think the laws dealing with narcotics traffic should probably be something that's nationwide, so it it is the same everywhere, rather than one state having a penalty, a mandatory penalty of 5 to 10 years if you're even caught in the same room with somebody that has marijuana, where other states uh like I just quoted in Massachusetts, the uh offender will be put on probation and suspended sentence. I think that uh the young people, which are the primary users of this this uh drug, are uh probably a ahead of of many of the older people in the country that are the ones that have put these laws on the books. Well, I know out here I can't enforce marijuana the marijuana law, the Dangerous Drug Act, simply because it's just so widespread. I'd be arresting just about everybody down here. So, if I see somebody using marijuana, I'll just try and confiscate it and kick them out. But, to go as far as an arrest in a situation like Supai is just impossible. On several of the cases we have made, we have actually been in with the crowd with the group and ask them for a draw for the marijuana cigarette they were smoking and they hand it to you and then you place them under arrest. We have some marijuana, narcotics. We have a few areas where the kids like to go and we go looking for them. We don't really have any narcotic squad and we don't uh just go out looking for uh drug violators. If we come across them in a regular patrol or as a result of other investigations, then we will take action. The use of marijuana uh in the national parks, this is a thing separate in the park, I believe, from the use of drugs and narcotics. Totally another ball game, you know. We're not entirely free agents. Uh I say we, I'm referring to park rangers. And the service as a whole, we're not entirely free agents. There are some parks where the use of marijuana is so widespread and so in public view that the superintendent uh receives complaints daily about it. And uh he's called to account for the fact that this is occurring within his park and that he has a responsibility to act, you know, to suppress it. And you know, this is a very real pressure. Uh it gets uh communicated to us through uh channels over on the hill. So, we're not free agents and you know, here again, you have to understand the situation in which you're working at the given time. When I say beating the underbrush, I mean literally that. There is no point for us to uh send rangers out into uh the back country and along back country trails in the remote areas of the park looking for people smoking marijuana. They just got no need to do this. As complaints about the use of marijuana are received, then we jolly well have to do something. This is the kind of distinction that I wanted to draw. The other thing is that in the traffic of drugs and narcotics the pills and that kind of thing there is a known record of this kind of traffic existing in some of our parks because it's quite understood in some urban sections that there are some national parks where that's where the action is. And they can go and buy this this kind of material quite freely in these parks. This kind of traffic, it seems to me we have to be aware of and take steps to overcome it. There is a a bureau of government, Bureau of Narcotics which is established uh solely to engage in this kind of activity. And I would like to see the Bureau of Narcotics take a more active role in this thing uh in the parks than uh than we have had to do to this point. I've had experience with this uh in the field and dealing with the bureau and largely they have said, "You know, we're not interested because your problem really doesn't amount to much." So, we've been forced to rely upon our own uh resources. Okay, if I was put in charge of uh handling the drugs in Yosemite I would put a number of undercover men who could live in the park with the people in the park and I would try to cut it off as the source of the supplier instead of the users. In San Francisco, there's a suicide center in which people on the phone who get calls from people committing suicides are very very acutely aware of of what drugs are being what what drugs the person on the calling them have taken. And they can respond in different ways cuz they know someone on amphetamines is going to be very jumpy. Someone on on barbiturates is going to go in the opposite direction. There's absolutely no sensitivity by the person in the field in the parks as as to uh what kind of drugs a person may be taking. And of course in terms of of legal responses, there is no sensitivity either. They're just bad. And I I think unless until there's a greater differentiation between soft and hard drugs, um you're really going to have a big problem. Some people tend to uh have a more adverse reaction to uh a given situation than others. You know, some people over, you know, with the especially in the field of marijuana. Some guys really have a big hang-up on it, you know, they by God, you know, this is one thing that we can't tolerate and to any degree. Well, let's uh look at it and say, "Well, you know, as long as it doesn't create another problem for me, you know, uh I'm not going to concern myself with it because I've got bigger fish to fry, you know, I've got other problems that I deem to be more important than just going ahead and letting some kid off with smoking pot." So, you've got to analyze the situation. You've got to really uh look at uh what your real problems are and you've got to direct your most effort to your most genuine problems. And it could well be that marijuana is the most genuine problem you have. On the other hand, it may not be.