"The Facts about Drug Abuse"

Concluding paragraph of the report:

"Recognizing that deeply felt attitudes and established policies reflect fears and judgments that will yield slowly, if ever, to facts and conditions described in the council's publications, we recommend that serious consideration be given to the use of individual state or local option as a means of attempting solutions appropriate in one place but not in others. Local option could encourage greater flexibility and ingenuity rather than reliance upon an unrealistic, rigid homogeneity in national drug policy. We need to respond to the diversity of people who use and misuse drugs, base all our policies on a consistent set of principles seeking to discourage misuse, and keep our seemingly innate drug-using behavior within reasonable limits through means which do not themselves cause more harm than they prevent."

Drug Abuse Council final report, 1980.