Of the plethora of social problems with which government has had to contend in recent history, few have generated more controversy than the non-therapeutic use of drugs. Many of those which are currently in common use did not exist fifty years ago; but the most dramatic growth in non-therapeutic use has been experienced with a drug that man has known for centuries: marijuana.1 Known generically as Cannabis sativa, internationally as Indian hemp, popularly as marijuana, and in American slang as "pot" or "grass," the drug was introduced to the United States as an intoxicant by itinerate Mexican farm workers in the early decades of this century. The acknowledged use of marijuana in the ghettos and communities of ethnic minorities for several decades stimulated no public outcry with the exception of the sensational press campaigns which led to the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.