NO DOUBT THAT SPIN ON DRUGS HAS INCREASED

News that marijuana use among young people is down from last year would be
good news, if it were true. When the Partnership for a Drug-Free America
released its findings that teenage marijuana use had dropped to 40 percent
from last year's 41 percent, most newspapers trumpeted the findings,
blissfully ignoring the estimated margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percent.

In all actuality, marijuana use may have gone up. Why would the group stand
behind such questionable numbers?
The reasoning came out later in its press release that these "optimistic"
findings justify the billion-dollar media awareness campaign begun by drug
czar Barry McCaffrey. As with most new studies and findings supporting the
counterproductive disaster of drug prohibition, spin is thicker than
intellectual integrity.

It seems that drug use is either "skyrocketing" or "plummeting" upon the
fund-raising cycle of the organizations that butter their bread with drug
prohibition.

Kevin Nelson,
Bow