Committee on the Institute for Drug

A significant number of letters were received in response to this request and were published in the Journal over the next few months (22). Basically all of the correspondents favored the idea of an institute for drug research, although they differed somewhat in their vision of how it might operate. In the meantime, the New York Section adopted a resolution to refer the matter to the Advisory Committee of the American Chemical Society, urging that the proposed institute be undertaken under the auspices of the Society. The Advisory Committee authorized President William Nichols to appoint a committee to report on the endowment that would be needed to support such an institute and to outline the policies under which it should be operated. The Committee on the Institute for Drug Research was appointed in February 1919 with Herty, to nobody s surprise, as Chairman. 

Parsons, Charles to members of Committee on the Institute for Drug Research. February 12, 1919, John J. Abel Papers, Alan Mason Chesney Archives, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Hereafter this collection will be cited as "Abel Papers."... 

Herty to members of Committee on the Institute for Drug Research. March 11, 1919, Abel Papers. 

Minutes of the Joint Meeting [Oct. 11, 1920] of the Committee on Institute for Drug Research and Representatives of the Chemical Foundation, Inc." Three-page typescript, Abel Papers. 

Keswick, of the hereditary drug-trading family that founded and still controls Jardine Matheson, also represented the RIIA and its sub-branch, the Institute for Pacific Relations, to the United States. (6) Sir John Henry is still Britain s number one man for China policy, Chairman of Britain s China Association, Vice-President of the Sino-British Trade Council, and a member of the Great Britain-China Committee. (His predecessor at the China Association from 1951-55 was John Kidston Swire, of the old opium-trading Swire family, who still sits on the London Committee of the HongShang.)... 

Steven R. Tannenbaum, a member of the Institute of Medicine, has a Ph.D. in food science and technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is currently the codirector and Underwood-Prescott Professor, Division of Bioengineering and Environmental Health, and professor of chemistry, Department of Chemistry. Dr. Tannenbaum s research interests include the chemistry and pathophysiology of nitric oxide, the quantitative measurement of human exposure to carcinogens, and tissue-based microsensors for toxin detection and drug metabolism. He has been a member of the NRC Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology and has served on several NRC committees. 

A. DAVID RODRIGUES is Executive Director, Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pharmaceutical Research Institute, Princeton, NJ, and received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Surrey, Guildford, UK. Dr. Rodrigues is a member of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and is presently serving on the Scientific Affairs Committee of the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics. He has authored more than 75 peer-reviewed articles and over one dozen book chapters, and sits on the Editorial Board of three journals (Drug Metabolism and Disposition, Drug Metabolism Letters, and Current Drug Metabolism). 

The election of Jimmy Carter as President in 1976 ensured a continuation of tolerance to drug use, particularly marijuana. In March 1977, the Special Assistant for Health Issues to the President, and high officials from the DEA, the State Department, the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), NIMH, the Customs Service, and the Justice Department appeared before the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control to argue for the decriminalization of marijuana. The President himself repeated a similar theme before Congress later that year. 

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