Mr. DANIELS. Also in that report could you spell out for this committee whether or not you find the problem more serious in the cities than you do in the suburbs? Commissioner LANG. Yes, we have a statistical breakdown by county of the number of people who have been committed and it has been fairly apparent that the problem, certainly of opiate abuse-heroin, morphine, opium-is much more prevalent in the cities and particularly our ghetto areas than the suburban areas, although we have been noticing a great tendency of this thing to mushroom, because opium is no respecter of persons or races. We have narcotic education centers, not only in New York City, with seven, but nine others throughout the State. When we were established in 1966 there were approximately 600 beds, mostly in State mental hygiene institutions, serving addicts. At the present time we have approximately 5,000 beds. Within the next few months we will develop new facilities and, hopefully, construction schedules are met-and Congressman Scheuer, I am sure, is familiar with that-which will increase our bed capacity by 2,000 and there for the first time will be rehabilitation centers which have been built from the ground up according to our functional model and specification, rather than converting a hospital or a hotel and the like. In fact we would welcome you, Mr. Daniels, Mr. Chairman, and the members of the subcommittee, to visit all of our centers. Mr. DANIELS. I would like to ask you. There seems to be a group of people in this country who feels marihuana is not harmful and should not be illegal and try to drive it from our criminal laws. In view of your experience as former assistant district attorney and present capacity as commissioner, do you feel that the use of marihuana, its possession and its sale should be made illegal? Commissioner LANG. Yes, I don't think it should be legalized. I think one of the problems of marihuana, as I said before-and I am speaking as an individual-is that the marihuana laws have really been a classic example of legislative overkill, not nearly as I have analyzed it historically by any real push to increase the penalties for marihuana, but because marihuana which is really an hallucinogen was classified as a narcotic. When the post World War II heroin epidemic started, the legislatures and the Congress increased the penalties, not for specific drugs but for narcotics in general and marihuana was carried along by its bootstraps. I think marihuana, as has been recognized by the World Health Organization and the United Nations, is a drug of abuse and should not be made available for general consumption. I think the laws in many respects are too harsh but I think in educating our young people it is important to meet the problem of marihuana and other hallucinogens on their merits or rather demerits as a drug, apart from their illegality. In other words, marihuana use is harmful apart from the fact that it is illegal, and I think this is a part of where our educational efforts should focus. Mr. REID. If my colleague will yield for one question- |