Carlton E. Turner
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| Carlton E. Turner | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1940 Choctaw County, Alabama, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Chemist |
| Institutions | University of Mississippi; White House Drug Abuse Policy Office |
| Known for | Director of the University of Mississippi marijuana project in the 1970s; drug abuse policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan, 1981–1986 |
Carlton E. Turner (born 1940), an American chemist, joined the marijuana research project of the University of Mississippi in 1970 and later became its director.[1][2] The project grew Cannabis sativa from seed of many origins to supply standardised marijuana for research, and Turner and his colleagues published a series of papers on the chemistry of the plant. In 1981 he left the university for the White House, where he was President Ronald Reagan's adviser on drug abuse policy until the end of 1986.[1][3]
The Mississippi marijuana project
Turner was born in Choctaw County, Alabama.[4] He studied at the University of Southern Mississippi, taking a bachelor's degree in chemistry and a master's degree and a doctorate in organic chemistry.[2] In 1970 he joined the University of Mississippi's marijuana project as a postdoctoral research associate, to manage the development of methods for cultivating standardised marijuana.[1] Anthony Haden-Guest, who visited the project for High Times in 1976, wrote that Turner joined in June 1970 after meeting Norman Doorenbos, who then ran it, and that he was made director in 1971.[5]: 59–61 He later also directed the university's Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, from 1980.[2]
Haden-Guest's account describes the garden under Turner's direction. The harvest was picked by hand, taking the young growths where the THC content was highest, because the project needed particular THC contents for its batches of cigarettes. Signs gave the origins and planting dates of the beds. Turner pointed out Turkish fibre-type plants with hollow stalks, which he said were weak in THC, and a line the staff called "Little India", which he said contained nearly every cannabinoid found in any other plant. Fourteen varieties sent from Moscow had all proved to be of the fibre type.[5]: 63 Turner left Maynard Quimby's plot of unusual kinds out of his catalogue, as herbarium specimens only, because he needed consistency.[5]: 63 On the number of species, he told Haden-Guest that botanists mostly agreed there was one, that Richard Evans Schultes held there were three, all of which the garden grew, and that he did not agree with Schultes. He said that the law named only Cannabis sativa. Ground was kept free for new sources of street marijuana, so that the project could be ready to determine their basic chemical profile.[5]: 108
Chemistry of the plant
Turner's papers with his colleagues named the project's plants by their origin. In 1972 he and P. S. Fetterman reported propyl homologues of the cannabinoids in an Indian variant,[6] and in 1973 he and K. Hadley reported that an African variant lacked cannabidiol.[7] In 1979, with Mahmoud A. ElSohly and others, he addressed the problems of classifying cannabis on the analysis of a single cannabinoid.[8] In 1980 he, ElSohly and Edward G. Boeren published a review of the natural constituents of the plant.[9] He was a co-author, with Coy Waller and others, of Marihuana: an annotated bibliography (1976, 1982).[10][11] Ernest Small and Arthur Cronquist, in their revision of the genus in 1976, thanked Quimby, Turner and their associates for counsel about their experimental studies in Cannabis.[12]: 431 The university also credits him with a research programme on cocaine, coca leaves and cocaine base.[13]
Drug policy adviser
Turner came to the White House in July 1981 as senior policy adviser for drug policy and became director of the Drug Abuse Policy Office in the Office of Policy Development. In April 1983 Reagan appointed him Special Assistant to the President for Drug Abuse Policy. He also assisted Nancy Reagan in her drug abuse education projects.[4] In March 1985 he was made Deputy Assistant to the President for Drug Abuse Policy.[14] He resigned with effect from 31 December 1986.[3]
The Encyclopedia of Drug Policy (2011) says that in office he treated marijuana as the leading drug in the "gateway drug" theory, that his initiatives focused mainly on marijuana, and that in 1983 he publicly defended spraying marijuana with the herbicide paraquat in Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee.[15]
Later career
Before joining Carrington Laboratories in 1994, Turner was president and chief executive of Princeton Diagnostic Laboratories of America. He later became president and chief executive of Carrington.[13] In 2007 he announced that he would retire from that post at the end of 2008.[16] In October 2007 he was the speaker for the University of Mississippi's Coy W. Waller Distinguished Lecture, on the path from the university's marijuana field to the White House.[13]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "History". Marijuana Research. School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi. Archived from the original on 24 January 2026. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Turner, Carlton E.: files, 1981–1987 (PDF) (Finding aid). Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Statement by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Speakes on the resignation of Carlton E. Turner as Deputy Assistant to the President for Drug Abuse Policy". Public Papers of the President. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. 4 December 1986. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Appointment of Carlton E. Turner as Special Assistant to the President for Drug Abuse Policy". Public Papers of the President. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. 7 April 1983. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Haden-Guest, Anthony (November 1976). "The garden". High Times. No. 15. p. 59 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Fetterman, P.S.; Turner, C.E. (October 1972). "Constituents of Cannabis sativa L. I: propyl homologs of cannabinoids from an Indian variant". Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. 61 (9): 1476–1477. doi:10.1002/jps.2600610930. PMID 5068957.
- ↑ Turner, C.E.; Hadley, K. (February 1973). "Constituents of Cannabis sativa L. II: absence of cannabidiol in an African variant". Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. 62 (2): 251–255. doi:10.1002/jps.2600620214. PMID 4686398.
- ↑ Turner, Carlton E.; Elsohly, Mahmoud A.; Cheng, Ping C.; Lewis, Glenda (May 1979). "Constituents of Cannabis sativa L., XIV: intrinsic problems in classifying Cannabis based on a single cannabinoid analysis". Journal of Natural Products. 42 (3): 317–319. doi:10.1021/np50003a017.
- ↑ Turner, Carlton E.; Elsohly, Mahmoud A.; Boeren, Edward G. (March 1980). "Constituents of Cannabis sativa L. XVII. A review of the natural constituents". Journal of Natural Products. 43 (2): 169–234. doi:10.1021/np50008a001. PMID 6991645.
- ↑ Farnsworth, Norman R. (June 1977). "Marihuana: an annotated bibliography. By Coy W. Waller, Jacqueline J. Johnson, Judy Buelke, and Carlton E. Turner". Book review. Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. 66 (6): 909–910. doi:10.1002/jps.2600660656.
- ↑ Dougherty, Kathleen K. (August 1983). "Coy W. Waller, Rashmi S. Nair, Ann F. McAllister, Beverly S. Urbanek and Carlton E. Turner: Marihuana: an annotated bibliography, volume II". Book review. Journal of Applied Toxicology. 3 (4): 220. doi:10.1002/jat.2550030411.
- ↑ Small, Ernest; Cronquist, Arthur (August 1976). "A practical and natural taxonomy for Cannabis". Taxon. 25 (4): 405–435. doi:10.2307/1220524.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 "Carlton Turner returns to UM to deliver Waller Lecture". Ole Miss News. University of Mississippi. 29 October 2007. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ "Appointment of Carlton E. Turner as Deputy Assistant to the President for Drug Abuse Policy". Public Papers of the President. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. 12 March 1985. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ Kleiman, Mark A. R.; Hawdon, James E., eds. (2011). "Turner, Carlton". Encyclopedia of Drug Policy. Vol. 2. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. pp. 784–785. doi:10.4135/9781412976961.n346.
- ↑ "Carrington Laboratories, Inc. says CEO to retire" (Press release). Carrington Laboratories. 21 May 2007. Retrieved 12 October 2026 – via BioSpace.