Knowing Newt
Medical Marijuana Memory Blog #38
Enjoy this blog on audio!
Recently, I had the pleasure of taping an episode for a new podcast created by Steph Sherer, founder and executive director of Americans for Safe Access (ASA). The podcast is entitled Advice for Women Who Want to Crush!: Shedding Light on How Sh*t Gets Done. It’s a topic Steph knows a little bit about. She founded ASA in 2002 and has created a dynamic, powerful, patient-based organization, boasting over 100,000 active members. She has nearly a quarter century invested in the medical cannabis issue. I hope you will have a look at our podcast here. You don’t often see a cumulative total of 75 years of activism and experience on one screen discussing the medical cannabis issue, past, present, and future.
Near the end of our conversation, Steph mentioned she had encountered Newt Gingrich in an airport about a decade ago. You might ask, Who’s Newt Gingrich? The former Georgia congressman rose to the highest power levels in the Republican Party at the end of the 20th century and served as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999. Gingrich is widely credited with launching the brutal era of partisanship that still endures. (Zelizer, 2020)
Steph had met Gingrich once before, and he remembered. Remembering people is the hallmark of a career politician. She took the opportunity to ask him why he changed his position on medical cannabis since she had read that he was once a sponsor for a medical marijuana bill in the U.S. Congress.
Newt’s answer was straight out of the politician’s handbook. Of course, he supported the seriously ill getting help, but he “couldn’t see a way for medical cannabis to move forward …without sending a mixed message.”
As she spoke these words, I heard my dead husband’s voice scoff at the comment. He probably would have told Newt that resolving mixed messages is a leader’s job.
Newt Gingrich — The Early Years
Newt Gingrich, at one time, was an important player in the world of medical marijuana. It was the summer of 1980. Gingrich was in his first term as a congressman from Georgia and looking to make his mark. He was contacted by his old friend and mentor from the Georgia Assembly, Virlyn Smith, who wanted Newt to meet a young widow named Mona Taft. The 32-year-old beauty described as “diminutive and determined” (Crown, 1980) had lost her husband, Harrison, to cancer in 1979. She had made him a promise that she would fight for medical cannabis so that others would not suffer as he had. The couple learned too late about the benefits of cannabis, and they were angry. The plant had made Harrison’s final days so much better, and they could not help but wonder what would have been the outcome if they had access to cannabis earlier.
Almost single-handedly, and with a sense of righteousness that was palatable, Mona engineered the passage of Georgia’s marijuana-as-medicine law in February 1980. It was based on the successful New Mexico state law passed in 1978 and was the nation’s 20th such law. As in other states, the bill passed through the Assembly with overwhelming support: 158-6 in the House, and 50-0 in the Senate.
Passage of the bill, however, was just the first step. Medical cannabis laws from this era relied on the federal government for supplies of the drug. The states naively believed the feds when they said they needed more research on cannabis as medicine. These laws called on the state departments of health to work with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to collect that research on cancer and glaucoma patients using federal supplies of cannabis.
Winning federal supplies for Georgia
Like many other states, Georgia quickly encountered a roadblock as it began to work with federal agencies. Georgia, they said, was welcome to use synthetic delta-9 THC capsules, but marijuana cigarettes were out of the question. Like so many before, the state of Georgia questioned the wisdom of giving a pill to relieve the nausea and vomiting in cancer patients. No thanks, they said, we want the inhaled version of THC. Loosely translated, the federal government’s reply was, “Tough luck.”
Frustrated, the state of Georgia wisely turned to Mona Taft. They had admired her energy, knowledge, and commitment. The state hired her as a consultant to lobby the federal government for supplies of medical marijuana and get the state program up and running.
Mona quickly grew irritated with the federal agencies, which were supposed to help the states establish these programs. Her reports matched those from other states during this time. They were uniform in describing federal bureaucrats as obstinate and often rude. Mona told her friend in the Georgia legislature, Virlyn Smith, about the trouble she was having. Virlyn, a cancer survivor, had become a strong advocate for medical cannabis. His office even provided constituents with recipes for marijuana brownies. (Womack, 1980) He suggested they contact his young friend, Newt Gingrich, in the U.S. House of Representatives. Gingrich was intrigued and asked Mona to organize a meeting on September 26, 1980. Mona invited my husband, Robert, to join them.
Just two weeks before the September meeting, the federal government announced it was releasing delta-9 THC capsules to cancer patients via the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Group C program. Despite public pronouncements of wanting to help cancer patients, the move was transparently political. It was designed to take the heat off the FDA and NIDA, which were simply overwhelmed by the number of states and patients seeking legal access to federal marijuana. The government had put up roadblocks against these programs, but it was human beings who manned those roadblocks. There were rumors of federal bureaucrats breaking down on the phone as they tried to explain the unexplainable: why the seriously ill could not have legal access to medical marijuana.
Mona told Gingrich the story behind NCI’s actions, and Gingrich followed the controversy in the Georgia papers. He expanded the scheduled meeting by calling in officials from NCI, NIDA, and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
Robert described the meeting as “rough” and said Newt was “direct, and demanding”. (Randall & O’Leary, 1998) No one, especially the federal representatives, was expecting Gingrich’s 1) mastery of the issue, and 2) his unwillingness to listen to the federal excuses. He made it clear that either Georgia gets its program or Gingrich would ask for an investigation of NCI and the other agencies in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bureaucrats left the meeting shaken, but they got the message. Georgia had its marijuana cigarettes in a month. It was one of just five states, out of a final total of 34, with marijuana-as-medicine laws to obtain federal supplies of marijuana cigarettes.
Robert, naturally, was very impressed with Newt Gingrich and put his name on the short list of potential sponsors for legislation that was being drafted by our attorneys at Steptoe & Johnson. They had helped us establish the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics (ACT) in the summer of 1980. ACT’s express goal was the passage of federal legislation to enact a national office of medical marijuana to provide the medicine, via a doctor, to any patient who required it.
Once the legislation was complete, a copy was sent to every member of the House of Representatives. Robert had been peppering Congress for months with information packets about medical marijuana. He was particularly sure that local press accounts of medical marijuana arrived on the appropriate representative’s desk. The hope was to attract a seasoned, popular lawmaker as chief sponsor. Gingrich, despite his impressive display of support, was deemed too volatile. He was making his mark.
In April 1981, Representative Stewart McKinney (R-CT) agreed to be the chief sponsor of the bill. McKinney was perfect. Robert described him as a “middle-aged, middle class, middle of the road Connecticut Republican.” He immediately sought out co-sponsors and Gingrich, encouraged by his mentor Virlyn Smith, agreed. H.R. 4498 was introduced on September 16, 1981.
The remarkable story of H.R. 4498 is a Medical Marijuana Memory Blog for another day. For now, what is important to know is that Gingrich was all in, encouraged by his mentor and Georgia political icon, Virlyn Smith. But the Reagans had come to town in January 1981, and things were beginning to change.
Just Say No and Newt Says Okay
In April 1982, Nancy Reagan went public with her Just Say No project. It was an easy “get”. Who wants kids to abuse drugs? Support for her effort nationwide was immediate and impressive. However, Georgia, in particular, was a hotbed of parent groups rapidly getting well organized with funding from private sources tapped by the First Lady and government grants. Medical marijuana was really the only drug issue at the time making any progress with reform, so it became a target for these groups, and, by extension, so did Newt Gingrich.
In some respects, what happened to Newt Gingrich was a glimpse into the future. The anti-drug groups targeted Newt — bombarding him with letters and phone calls, attacking him in the press, and disrupting town hall meetings. They are tactics that are all too familiar today but were just emerging in the early 1980s. Ironically, Newt the disrupter became a victim of the tactics he already knew and endorsed.
After barely winning re-election in the fall of 1982, Newt withdrew from H.R. 4498. In a letter to Robert, Gingrich wrote, “The factual case [for marijuana’s use in medicine] is sustainable, but the cultural case is not.” Expanding more in a letter to Representative McKinney, he said, “At a time when our efforts should be toward crushing the illegal drug culture, and destroying the illegal dealers, it’s simply unwise to confuse the message with a bill which is not understandable to our own allies—people who are with us on the effort to destroy the illegal drug culture.” [Emphasis added]
Virlyn Smith had died in March 1982. Newt’s conscience could rest easy knowing the common-sense approach of his mentor was silenced. Like so many before and since, Gingrich caved to the bullying of drug warriors. He was willing to sacrifice the health and well-being of the seriously ill to “save the children.” You could put his words into Harry Anslinger’s mouth and never know the difference. ❖
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