Margaret Mead

[Johnny]

Mead testified before Congress in favor of the legalization of marijuana on October 27, 1969.

Mead's Congressional Testimony

Mead was called to testify before Congress on various issues, especially in her later years. She was asked to address topics related to such areas as nutrition, the environment, medicine, and science. In these hearings on the drug industry in October of 1969, Mead addressed a variety of concerns, including developing therapeutic drugs to deal with the stress of modern life and using technology to prevent the occurrence of adverse drug interactions. Her testimony is most remembered, however, for her comments in favor of legalizing marijuana.

Reaction to Mead's Testimony

Mead's Congressional testimony on marijuana provoked controversy. The governor of Florida, Claude Kirk (b.1926), called Mead a "dirty old lady." Some members of the public included newspaper clippings on her testimony along with letters offering their opinions. This woman wrote her comments directly on the newspaper article, concluding Mead "must be crazy [and] a dope fiend." People reacted not just to Mead's testimony but also to some comments she made to the media afterwards, particularly her comment that marijuana should be legal at age sixteen. She subsequently issued a statement clarifying her views.

Mead in L'il Abner Comic Strip

Media response to Mead's comments on marijuana extended to editorial cartoons and comics.

In this strip Al Capp (1909-1979) mocks both Mead's position on the legalization of marijuana and the frivolity of television talk shows. Mead appeared on a variety of television talk shows in this period, including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The talk show host here caricatures her views, saying "Now that the lady anthropologist has explained how harmless heroin is for children . . ." A figure appearing to represent Mead is seated next to the starlet.

Margaret Mead was a distinguished anthropologist, an intellectual and a scientist. She is the author of numerous books on primitive societies and she also wrote about many contemporary issues. Some of the areas in which she was prominent were education, ecology, the women's movement, the bomb, and student uprisings.

Margaret Mead was a woman who blended knowledge and action. Time, in fact, named her "Mother of the World" in 1969. In the political realm she served as a diplomat, without a portfolio, to many presidents in the areas of ecology and nutrition. She also had a great deal of concern about the role of science and technology in world politics.

When Margaret Mead died in 1978, she was the most famous anthropologist in the world. Indeed, it was through her work that many people learned about anthropology and its holistic vision of the human species. Mead taught at a number of institutions, authored some twenty books and co-authored an equal number. She was much honored in her lifetime, serving as president of major scientific associations, including the American Anthropological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and she received 28 honorary doctorates. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom following her death in 1978.

Mead testified before Congress in favor of the legalization of marijuana on October 27, 1969, and she told Newsweek in 1970 that she had tried it once herself.

Source: Library of Congress, Margaret Mead Collection