John Haywood Finlator was an American federal administrator and narcotics law enforcement director.

This advocacy often set him at odds with his coworkers at the bureau and with Congress but was praised by many medical community members.

[5] In 1937, Finlator became a postal clerk for the United States Post Office Department in North Carolina.

[11] Finlator was a "soft spoken" administrator, but he originally gained the respect of the policing community because he looked the part and was able to secure convictions.

[11] On April 8, 1968, Finlator was re-delegated by Attorney General Ramsey Clark to the position of assistant director of the newly established Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), where he would keep his pay and grade.

[16] Keith Stroup, the founding director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) contacted Finlator and asked him if he would like to join.

[16] On the same evening after Finlator tendered his resignation, he received a telephone call from Stroup asking him again to join the founding advisory board of the nascent pro-reform organization.

He was referred to as part of the "traveling road show," by the organization, testifying before state and local governments across the country as a key witness for decriminalization.

I offered Finlator marijuana on several occasions, when we were spending a night in some hotel on the road waiting to testify the next day before some state legislature, but he always laughed and declined.

Those of us who smoked would often meet in my room and share a joint before dinner, where Finlator and Whipple would join us and make jokes about our being stoned.