Minnesotan discovers new insight into former President Richard Nixon’s views on marijuana

CATHY WURZER: There is a Minnesota man who has made an interesting discovery that President Richard Nixon, who started the war on drugs way back decades ago, privately said that marijuana wasn't dangerous. Take a listen to this recording from the Oval Office on March 6th, 1973.

RICHARD NIXON (ON TAPE): I know that it's not particularly danger and all the rest. And I know most of the kids want to legalize it. But on the other hand, it's the wrong signal at this time. That's my point of view.

CATHY WURZER: So as the president said there, he knows nothing about marijuana. He knows that it's not addictive and dangerous, and the kids are in favor of legalizing it, in case you didn't catch that.

As part of this project-- it's at the Nixon Presidential Library-- the tape is public. And they were unearthed by Minnesotan Kurtis Hanna and first reported in The New York Times. Kurtis Hanna works in the cannabis industry and is a lobbyist, and he's on the line to talk about his findings. Hey, Kurtis, thanks for joining us.

KURTIS HANNA: Thanks for having me, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: So I understand it was an arrest involving marijuana, a while back, that got you interested in cannabis policy. Tell me about your story.

KURTIS HANNA: Yeah, about 15 years ago, I was arrested down in Iowa and was charged with possession of a Schedule I substance, namely marijuana. And it just wasn't a very pleasant experience. And I decided to do what I can, or I decided to do what I could to try to make things better for the next guy that walked down the same path as I was in.

CATHY WURZER: So how did you end up in the Nixon Presidential Library with these audio tapes?

KURTIS HANNA: [LAUGHS] Yeah, I mean, some of it was just pure curiosity. But, you know, specifically, in doing cannabis law reform, I was just interested in knowing what Nixon, the man who signed the federal Controlled Substances Act and put marijuana in Schedule I, which was kind of tied to what my charge was when I was arrested for marijuana possession, what he was saying kind of off-the-cuff when he thought no one else would be listening.

CATHY WURZER: Gosh, remember that famous photo of Nixon with Elvis, at the time? And he made Elvis a Drug Enforcement Agency officer, you know, ceremoniously. And they had a conversation about illegal drugs and that kind of thing. I'm wondering, when you went through those audiotapes, you must have listened to hours of tapes before finding some of these statements from the former president.

KURTIS HANNA: Yeah, it was definitely 30 or 40 hours. I don't know exactly. I wasn't really keeping track, but yeah. The other part of it too was some of the audio is very difficult to make out because these microphones were hidden on the guests in the room-- didn't know they were even there.

And so, as a part of that, nobody knew where to look when they were talking in order to get the audio to actually be of good quality. And so I had to listen to this last one a number of times because I was pretty confident about what he said. But I just had to replay it over and over.

CATHY WURZER: And of course, you know, we should say that the White House recording system was, of course, part of the whole Watergate situation too. We're going to listen to another remark that the former president made from that same Oval Office meeting. Here it is.

RICHARD NIXON (ON TAPE): I have no-- no problem with the fact that there should be-- there should be an evaluation of penalties on it. And there should not be these penalties that-- you know, in Texas, they kill you. It's 10 years in jail for marijuana. That's wrong.

CATHY WURZER: OK. I know that was kind of really tough to listen to there. The former president said, I have no problem with the fact that there should be an evaluation on the penalties on it-- talking about marijuana. There should not be these penalties that, you know, like in Texas, where people are getting 10 years for marijuana. That's wrong, he said.

Now, as you know, the war on drugs, specifically marijuana, that's led to millions of arrests that have impacted millions of people, including, disproportionately, Black people. So when you heard that line, what did you think?

KURTIS HANNA: Yeah, I was just completely flabbergasted. I had gone into this whole endeavor thinking that I would hear Nixon just recite a bunch of lies and propaganda. But come to find out, he actually has policies and opinions that are much more similar to mine than I would have ever guessed.

CATHY WURZER: Did you have an opportunity to dive into why, then, he kept marijuana as a Schedule I drug? Any background on that at all?

KURTIS HANNA: Well, I think that he just recognized that, as far as public opinion goes, that there wasn't a lot of interest in marijuana being decriminalized or legalized. And so he was somewhat tapping into what the populace at the time wanted him to do, which was be tough on crime and have a law-and-order sort of policy position.

And really, he won in an absolute landslide in 1972. So it definitely-- the proof is in the pudding that that seemed to be resonating with people. But unfortunately, he decided not to use his political capital in order to advocate for a policy that he personally believed in, and instead was more of a populist on this issue and decided to go with what the majority of the public wanted at the time.

CATHY WURZER: Isn't that interesting? I wonder, gosh, how different marijuana would be viewed today had he made those statements publicly back then. Hard to determine, probably.

KURTIS HANNA: Hard to know, but I think things would be quite different. And the hope is, even though these tapes have taken a long time to come out, that they still might make some sort of positive change, moving forward.

CATHY WURZER: I wonder if you think when it may happen that marijuana will be taken off the list of Schedule I drugs. I know there are conversations happening right now to take it off that. But I wonder if you think that's going to happen sooner rather than later, or will various elements of government still dig in their heels?

KURTIS HANNA: Yeah, so the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, which Nixon actually created in 1973, announced that they're having hearings in early December about this exact topic, about whether they should remove marijuana from Schedule I and put it in Schedule III, as the Minnesota legislature and Governor Walz did just a couple of years ago here in Minnesota, at the state level.

CATHY WURZER: See, before you go, I got to ask you this, of course. Recreational marijuana is obviously legal in Minnesota now. But if I'm not mistaken, I think your next frontier is psychedelics. Is that right? Because I think you were the head lobbyist that helped form the current Psychedelic Task Force. What are you hoping happens around psychedelics in the state of Minnesota?

KURTIS HANNA: Yeah, well, it was a common refrain during the push to legalize adult-use cannabis that prohibition didn't work. And I think we as a society know that about alcohol. We have for a long time. We now are coming to that belief system around cannabis. And I think, when it comes to psilocybin-containing mushrooms and things of that sort, natural psychedelics, that these have amazing properties that can be beneficial for people that have mental health issues and other things.

And I just think right now is a good time to have this conversation. And this task force is going to be coming out with their recommendation to the legislature in just a couple of months time. So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Kurtis, thanks for the time. We appreciate it.

KURTIS HANNA: Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been great.

CATHY WURZER: Kurtis-- Kurnis-- excuse me. Kurtis Hanna is a cannabis lobbyist in Minnesota.