A man convicted of selling dope to a minor may have 15 years in which to think it over, which should be sufficient to make others careful at least.... These were the first sentences locally under the new Federal narcotics law passed at the last session of Congress. This law considerably increases penalties and provides a death sentence for sale of heroin to a minor.

The setting of such an example should strike fear into the dope peddlers, who are not deterred by conscience.

Three years later, on July 12, 1959, editorial board responded to a Pulitzer-Prize-winning Times series on narcotics that starkly depicted addicts in Southern California:

[T]he temptation to treat the narcotic traffic as a feature of an otherworld underworld is very strong. The result is that most people who sincerely believe that they have a certain minimum responsibility as their brother's keeper do not think of the dope peddler or his victim, the addict, as a derelict brother but as somebody as alien from them as the primitive Patagonian.... Nothing can be done about the inveterate addict. He is as damned in this world as Judas is in the next.

After the series ended a week later, The Times used its reportage as the basis for its fight-drugs-abroad stance. Until the 1980s, The Times would continually emphasize the need for Mexico to enforce drug laws at the border:

Every legitimate feature of the U.S.-Mexican relationship presses for a cleanup of the miserable narcotics traffic. It has helped to make the boundary of the U.S. and Mexican Californias the dividing line between respectable prosperity and squalid depravity. There is no reason why northern good living should not overflow the frontier — no reason except the tolerance on the southern side of the most inhuman of human indecencies.

The Times sounded that note again on May 31, 1962, broadening its call to include other countries:

President Kennedy has announced that a White House Conference on Narcotics will at long last be held late this summer. This may be a breakthrough in the war against a terrible enemy.... The fact is that the narcotics traffic is not only a national threat, directly or indirectly affecting every citizen, but is also an international problem. Heroin and marijuana must be imported from other countries, and thus far virtually nothing has been done to cut the foreign roots of the vile commerce.

A year later, on Nov. 6, 1963, The Times shows, between editorials filled with high-pitched anti-drug rhetoric, an early glimmer of a sense of humor on drug issues:

That report about marijuana-hooked mice in the Hall of Justice horrifies even the unimaginative. Suppose word gets around in mousedom? Evolution would go into reverse. Hopped-up mice might take over the world. Cats would become as extinct as brontosaurus. Human beings would be half-tolerated, usually behind the woodwork, or bred for laboratory experiments.... We are frightened.

On Aug. 18, 1966, The Times was serious again, but managed to sneak in a pun:

A huge task force of Mexican agents backed by troops has launched a "sweep" operation along the border, aimed at curbing this evil.... Such activity on the part of our good southern neighbor, pursued vigorously and consistently, should help ease the heavy burden carried by state, local and federal authorities in the United States, by nipping the illicit traffic literally in the bud.

By Oct. 29, 1967, The Times had to address the push to legalize marijuana. It came out swinging:

We strongly believe…that marijuana poses a threat to society, and that legislation outlawing it should remain in force.... Experts note that marijuana smoking, though not a true addiction, quickly becomes a habit. In some cases it leads to experimentation with genuinely addictive agents, such as heroin, and from there to crime to support use of that expensive drug.... It requires little imagination to see how young people can be dared or challenged or teased into their first marijuana cigarette.... The Times strongly believes…that nothing should be done with present laws that could be construed as making more permissive, and thus encouraging, the use of marijuana.

But within two years — and they happened to be those key late-1960s ones — The Times softened. On May 12, 1969, it wrote:

There is a growing realization that the penalties for simple possession or use of marijuana are too harsh and unrealistic, particularly for young first-time offenders.... Why…is a second-time drunk driver — a potential killer — given only a five-day mandatory jail sentence while a student caught smoking marijuana may be subject to years in the penitentiary?.... The Times does not condone the use of marijuana. By no means. It is a dangerous thing, a dangerous habit, and every effort must be made to stamp out the ugly traffic.... Branding a youthful marijuana experimenter as a felon gives him a criminal record for life. Therein lies the fault of the present system.

The Times continued its easy stance, mixed with a bit of its old morality, on March 26, 1972:

The best approach would seem to be a pragmatic one, to regard private marijuana smoking essentially as one of those "victimless crimes" where social harm is slight or nonexistent, where interference by authority is not really necessitated by any demonstrable threat to the community. What an individual chooses to do in privacy is his business alone, provided no harm is done to others. That choice may not be wise, or likely to win moral approval, nor is there need to sanction it by law. But neither is there need for interference by authority....

OPINION » One world? Obama's on a different planet By John R. Bolton The senator's Berlin speech was radical and naive. EDITORIALS|OP-ED|LETTERS				FROM THE BLOGS Opinion L.A. Opinion L.A. The best in Southern California opinion journalism, Monday through Friday Former Timesman finally makes good Sat, July 26, 2008 | 7:08:00 AM PDT At the L.A. Times it often seems that the only kind of colleagues we have are... more » Bit Player By Jon Healey Bit Player Jon Healey on Hollywood's love-hate relationship with technology. A Paramount movie integrated into Sony web programming Fri, July 25, 2008 | 5:32:55 PM PDT This is so meta, I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around it. Today Bebo... more »