Pubdate: Sun, 05 May 2002
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 2002 PG Publishing
Contact:  http://www.post-gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
Author: John P. Walters, U.S. Drug Czar
Note: Read the entire OPED and tips for responding via a Letter to the 
Editor http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0239.html

MARIJUANA IS FAR FROM HARMLESS

'Reefer Madness' is silly, but the real effects of this supposedly mellow 
herb are clearly pernicious, says John P. Walters

In December, the University of Michigan released its annual survey, 
"Monitoring the Future," which measures drug use among American youth. Very 
little had changed from the previous year's report; most indicators were 
flat. The report generated little in the way of public comment.

Yet what it brought to light was deeply disturbing. Drug use among our 
nation's teens remains stable, but at near-record levels, with some 49 
percent of high school seniors experimenting with marijuana at least once 
prior to graduation -- and 22 percent smoking marijuana at least once a month.

After years of giggling at quaintly outdated marijuana scare stories like 
the 1936 movie "Reefer Madness," we've become almost conditioned to think 
that any warnings about the true dangers of marijuana are overblown. But 
marijuana is far from "harmless" -- it is pernicious. Parents are often 
unaware that today's marijuana is different from that of a generation ago, 
with potency levels 10 to 20 times stronger than the marijuana with which 
they were familiar.

Marijuana directly affects the brain. Researchers have learned that it 
impairs the ability of young people to concentrate and retain information 
during their peak learning years, and when their brains are still 
developing. The THC in marijuana attaches itself to receptors in the 
hippocampal region of the brain, weakening short-term memory and 
interfering with the mechanisms that form long-term memory. Do our 
struggling schools really need another obstacle to student achievement?

Marijuana smoking can hurt more than just grades. According to the 
Department of Health and Human Services, the number of marijuana-related 
emergency room admissions is growing. Each year, for example, marijuana use 
is linked to tens of thousands of serious traffic accidents.

Research has now established that marijuana is in fact addictive. Of the 
4.3 million Americans who meet the diagnostic criteria for needing drug 
treatment (criteria developed by the American Psychiatric Association, not 
police departments or prosecutors) two-thirds are dependent on marijuana, 
according to HHS. These are not occasional pot smokers but people with real 
problems directly traceable to their marijuana use, including significant 
health and emotional problems and difficulty in cutting down on use. Sixty 
percent of teens in drug treatment have a primary marijuana diagnosis.

Despite this and other strong scientific evidence of marijuana's 
destructive effects, a cynical campaign is underway to proclaim the virtues 
of "medical" marijuana. By now most Americans realize that the push to 
"normalize" marijuana for medical use is part of the drug legalization 
agenda. Its chief funders, George Soros, John Sperling and Peter Lewis, 
have spent millions to help pay for referendums and ballot initiatives in 
states from Alaska to Maine.

Why? Is the U.S. health care system -- the most sophisticated in the world 
- -- hobbled by a lack of smoked medicines? The University of California's 
Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research is currently conducting scientific 
studies to determine the efficacy of marijuana in treating various 
ailments. Until that research is concluded, however, most of what the 
public hears from marijuana activists is little more than a compilation of 
anecdotes. Many questions remain unanswered, but the science is clear on a 
few things. Example: Marijuana contains hundreds of carcinogens.

Moreover, anti-smoking efforts aimed at youth have been remarkably 
effective by building on a campaign to erode the social acceptability of 
tobacco. Should we undermine those efforts by promoting smoked marijuana as 
though it were a medicine?

While medical marijuana initiatives are based on pseudoscience, their 
effects on the criminal justice system are anything but imaginary. By 
opening up legal loopholes, existing medical marijuana laws have caused 
police and prosecutors to stay away from marijuana prosecutions.

Giving marijuana dealers a free pass is a terrible idea. In fact, thanks in 
part to reporting in The Washington Post, District of Columbia residents 
are aware that marijuana dealers are dangerous criminals. The recent 
life-without-parole convictions of leaders of Washington's K Street Crew 
are only the latest evidence of this.

As reported in The Post, the K Street Crew was a vicious group of marijuana 
dealers whose decade-long reign of terror was brought to an end only this 
year after a massive prosecution effort by Michael Volkov, chief gang 
prosecutor for the U.S. attorney's office. The K Street Crew is credited 
with at least 17 murders, including systematic killings of potential witnesses.

Says prosecutor Volkov: "The experience in D.C. shows that marijuana 
dealers are no less violent than cocaine and heroin traffickers. They have 
just as much money to lose, just as much turf to lose, and just as many 
reasons to kill as any drug trafficker."

Skeptics will charge that this kind of violence is just one more reason to 
legalize marijuana. A review of the nation's history with drug use suggests 
otherwise: When marijuana is inexpensive, as it would be if legal, use 
soars -- bad news for the schools, streets and emergency rooms.
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