Pubdate: Sat, 23 Jul 2005
Source: Buffalo News (NY)
Copyright: 2005 The Buffalo News
Contact:  http://www.buffalonews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/61
Author: Bruce Mirken
Note: Bruce Mirken, a longtime health journalist, now serves as 
director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Cited: Drug Enforcement Administration (www.dea.gov)
Cited: Office of National Drug Control Policy (www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov)

EVEN THE COPS KNOW METH IS WORSE THAN MARIJUANA

Earlier this month, a survey from the National Association of 
Counties reported that local law enforcement agencies think the 
federal government has its anti-drug priorities backward, putting too 
much emphasis on marijuana and not enough on truly lethal drugs like 
methamphetamine. Now a new report suggests that even the federal 
government's top drug cops - the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration 
- - know something is very wrong.

They'll never say it explicitly, of course. Executive branch agencies 
don't openly criticize White House policies. But the message in the 
DEA's 2005 "National Drug Threat Assessment" - prepared in February 
but released with no publicity this month - is unmistakable: The war 
on marijuana is a failure, and cops overwhelmingly see meth as a 
greater threat.

For reasons no one outside the Bush administration understands, the 
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under director 
John Walters has been obsessed with marijuana. In November 2002, the 
office sent a letter to the nation's prosecutors declaring flatly, 
"Nationwide, no drug matches the threat posed by marijuana."

That emphasis has continued, most visibly in ONDCP's press 
conferences, news releases and ad campaigns. Recent efforts have 
included highly dubious claims that marijuana causes mental illness 
and even more dubious claims that marijuana causes lung cancer.

America's police have different priorities, the DEA found. Asked to 
identify the greatest drug threat in their communities, only 12 
percent of local law enforcement agencies named marijuana - a figure 
that has been declining for years. In contrast, 35.6 percent named 
cocaine and 39.6 cited methamphetamine as the greatest threat - 
despite the fact that marijuana use is much more common.

The DEA said, "Data indicate that, despite the volume of marijuana 
trafficked and used in this country, for many in law enforcement 
marijuana is much less an immediate problem than methamphetamine, for 
example, which is associated with more tangible risks such as violent 
users and toxic production sites."

While sucking resources away from more serious drug problems, the 
government's war on marijuana hasn't even succeeded on its own terms. 
Despite the eradication of some 31/2 million marijuana plants last 
year, the DEA could find "no reports of a trend toward decreased 
availability" anywhere in the country. And rates of marijuana use 
among both adults and teens remain higher than they were when 
President Nixon first declared "War on Drugs" more than three decades 
ago. "Indeed," the report noted, "reporting from some areas has 
suggested that marijuana is easier for youths to obtain than alcohol 
or cigarettes."

This is crazy. America desperately needs drug policies based on 
science, reason and common sense. If the current regime at ONDCP is 
incapable of moving in that direction, the president must replace 
director Walters with someone who lets policy be guided by facts, not ideology.
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