Pubdate: Mon, 16 Oct 2000
Source: Duluth News-Tribune (MN)
Copyright: 2000 Duluth News-Tribune
Contact:  424 W. First St., Duluth, MN 55802
Website: http://www.duluthnews.com/
Forum: http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?duluth
Authors: James Bovard and Joyce Nalepka
Note: 2 OPEDs, one from each side of the issue
Note: Bovard is the author of the just-published "Feeling Your Pain: The 
Explosion & Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years"
Note: Nalepka is president of America Cares Inc. and Drug-Free Kids -- 
America's Challenge.

IS NOW THE RIGHT TIME TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA?

YES, UNCLOG PRISONS, FIGHT REAL CRIME

How much power should some people have to punish other people for 
politically incorrect habits?

Since 1937, the U.S. government has been waging war against marijuana 
users. According to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services 
Administration, 70-plus million Americans have used marijuana at least once 
in their lifetimes.

Yet, the federal government still considers marijuana to be the Great 
Satan. Nearly 700,000 people were arrested for marijuana violations in 1998 
- -- more people than were arrested for murder, rape, robbery and aggravated 
assault combined, as the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws 
points out.

Law enforcement resources are limited: The more time cops spend on 
marijuana crackdowns, the less time they have to protect Americans against 
violent predators.

How many murders and rapes go unprosecuted because law enforcement is 
racking up impressive Vietnam-style body counts against potheads?

Marijuana laws are more harmful than marijuana. A recent National Academy 
of Science study concluded: "Except for the harms associated with smoking, 
the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects 
tolerated for other medications."

A 1999 study by the University of Toronto found that marijuana has far less 
adverse effect on drivers than does alcohol. The British medical journal 
Lancet editorialized in 1995 that "the smoking of cannabis, even long term, 
is not harmful to health."

According to more than 100 published studies, marijuana can provide medical 
benefits to people suffering from multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, asthma, and 
the effects of a stroke.

Marijuana is also invaluable for people suffering from chemotherapy or the 
effects of AIDS treatment.

A 1999 Gallup poll found that almost three-quarters of Americans favored 
permitting the use of marijuana as medicine. Yet Drug Czar Gen. Barry 
McCaffrey ridicules claims of marijuana's medical benefit as "Cheech `n' 
Chong medicine."

Most people who smoke marijuana do not do so for medicinal purpose -- 
unless one considers alleviation of tension or boredom or unhappiness as 
medicinal. Marijuana may have fewer side-effects than Prozac, Zolaft or 
other widely used anti-depressants.

It is also debatable whether moderate marijuana use is more mind-numbing 
than an addiction to television. Excessive marijuana use can, like 
excessive alcohol consumption, sap a person's will and undermine the 
person's character. But simply because some substance is harmful in some 
circumstances does not justify allowing politicians to seize more power 
over everyone.

The war on marijuana is dismally failing to protect children. The 
percentage of eighth-graders who used marijuana tripled between 1991 and 
1997. More high school students (90 percent) reported that marijuana was 
"fairly easy" or "very easy" to get in 1998 than ever before, according to 
a federally funded anti-drug survey.

There is no proof that legalizing marijuana would result in increased 
usage. Marijuana is legal for adults in the Netherlands. The percentage of 
Americans who have used marijuana during their lifetime, or in the last 
month, is more than double the percentage of Dutch who have used marijuana.

Marijuana should be legalized. The same type of restrictions that currently 
prohibit the sale of alcohol to minors could be enforced as well on 
marijuana. The system would not be foolproof -- but it would certainly be 
far less ludicrous than the status quo.

Yes, unclog prisons, fight real crime.

Bovard is the author of the just-published "Feeling Your Pain: The 
Explosion & Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years" (St. 
Martin's Press). Send your views on this column or the one below to Letter 
to the Editor, by e-mail to  or by mail to 424 W. 
First St., Duluth MN 55802.

NO, MEDICAL MARIJUANA IS A HOAX

Tell your congressman that you're among the 85 percent of Americans opposed 
to legalizing drugs. Help him or her understand there's a campaign of 
misinformation to legalize drugs beginning with the "marijuana cigarettes 
are medicine" hoax.

We've fought drug legalization since l977 when "legalizers" were a few 
stoned disciples of LSD advocate Timothy Leary. We stopped them in l978 by 
defeating Rep. Newton Steers, a Maryland Republican who supported weaker 
drug controls.

In fact, legalization was "dead" until the legalizers convinced four 
wealthy fat cats -- financier George Soros, Progressive Insurance CEO Peter 
Lewis, Apollo Group President John Sperling and Men's Warehouse CEO George 
Zimmerman -- that legalizing marijuana was the answer to America's drug 
problem.

Soros and his cronies are pouring millions into misinformation campaigns 
aimed at passing state initiatives that would violate the Federal 
Controlled Substances Act. States simply do not have the authority to 
legalize marijuana, heroin and ecstasy, no matter how many signatures are 
gathered.

The legalizers chose to support state initiatives knowing the U.S. Food and 
Drug Administration will not approve marijuana cigarettes as medicine. And 
voters, of course, aren't allowed to approve medicines. Under existing law, 
only the FDA has that authority.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) has led 
the legalization march. Concerned parents call its founder, Keith Stroup, 
the "Father of the Teen Marijuana Epidemic."

And no wonder! In High Times, a magazine that chronicles the marijuana 
subculture, Stroup wrote that "there's no particular evidence that even 
those few young people who smoke a great deal of marijuana necessarily hurt 
their level of performance, academic or otherwise."

Stroup also told a group of students at Atlanta's Emory University: "We're 
trying to get marijuana reclassified medically. If we do that, we'll be 
using the issue as a red herring to give marijuana a good name."

The legalizers touted marijuana cigarettes as a medicine long after the 
National Institutes of Health warned:

"People with HIV and others whose immune system is impaired should avoid 
marijuana use."

Another legalizing group, the Drug Policy Foundation, recently merged with 
Soros' Lindesmith Center. DPF's idea of prevention was to develop a "safe 
crack smoking pipe." Apparently it's OK for crack to burn out your brain as 
long as it doesn't burn your lips in the process.

Unfortunately, the efforts of anti-drug parents are no match for the likes 
of Soros and his associates. They've literally poured money into the 
campaign coffers of numerous politicians, including Vice President Al Gore. 
Gore, it should be noted, has withdrawn his support for the use of "medical 
marijuana cigarettes." He should return Soros' campaign contributions as well.

Other prominent politicians backing legalization are Gov. Gary Johnson, 
R-N.M., and Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Calif., who is running for the Senate this 
fall against Democratic incumbent Dianne Feinstein.

Americans should go to the polls next month and vote to send lawmakers who 
favor legalization into political exile where their bizarre ideas can't 
hurt America's children. That would be real harm reduction.

Nalepka is president of America Cares Inc. and Drug-Free Kids -- America's 
Challenge.
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