DRUGS IN ATLANTIC COUNTY

In the past 20 months, 66 men and women in Atlantic County have died as a
result of an overdose of illegal drugs.

Thousands of other Atlantic County residents have had productive lives
destroyed by the devastating effects of illegal drugs on themselves and
their families.

Yet, some people would suggest that we should relax our resolve to combat
the use of dangerous drugs by removing the prohibitions currently in place
regarding the possession and sale of illegal drugs and to create a market
economy for their legal use. Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of
Americans is opposed to legalization and related policies that would
provide for the availability of dangerous drugs at market prices.

In the 19th century, this country lived through the experience of
over-the-counter availability of dangerous drugs.

By the turn of the 20th century a significant portion of our population
suffered the predictable effects of addiction to dangerous drugs - lack of
productivity, financial ruin, estrangement from family and friends and
death by overdose.

Then, our country rejected the scourge of drugs and enacted federal
statutes prohibiting some dangerous drugs and controlling the use of others.

The reason for the enactment of the initial federal statutes is because
addictive drugs are harmful.

Not only is the life of the drug abuser affected, but those under the
influence of drugs negatively impact the lives of others who come in
contact with them.

Since the primary role of government is to protect its citizens from harm,
to expose our youth to inexpensive and plentiful dangerous drugs by
abandoning our national effort to combat substance abuse would result in a
large segment of our population succumbing to the effects of these
addictive and dangerous chemicals.

Lives would be lost, families would suffer and workplace productivity would
decline.

In dealing with dangerous drugs, there is no such thing as casual use. If
the supply were plentiful and inexpensive, both use and abuse would
increase dramatically.

Some advocates of legalization say that adults should be able to intoxicate
themselves with dangerous drugs in the privacy of their own homes.

Such use would be destructive not only to the adult drug user but to his
whole family. By removing criminal penalties and legalizing drugs, our
young people would look to their parents and other adults and wrongly
conclude that taking drugs is a safe and socially acceptable form of
recreation. Abandoning our comprehensive drug strategy would clearly
increase the supply of available drugs and correspondingly lower the cost
to purchase such drugs, thus enabling our youth to experiment with a wide
array of dangerous drugs.

The family unit would suffer, the child would become a drug user and the
addicted or drug abusing parent would be more prone to child abuse and neglect.

The cost that we presently expend for the national drug-control strategy
would be inexpensive in comparison to the cost of an unproductive society
if a large segment of the population consumed illicit drugs.

A small segment of our population, recognizing the disastrous effects of
unrestricted use of dangerous drugs, advocate only the legalization of
marijuana. They fail to recognize the real issue.

Marijuana is a powerful psychotropic substance that alters behavior.

To suggest that it is positive for government to encourage the use of
marijuana at a time when the percentage of those using the drug is
declining is counterproductive especially when there is overwhelming
evidence that marijuana is a "gateway" to the use of other dangerous drugs.

There are some who would suggest that marijuana has a valid medical use.
However, there is no study or research that demonstrates that smoking
marijuana is more effective in treating diseases or their symptoms than
other medically accepted prescribed drugs.

While there may be anecdotal evidence where individual patients claim that
they feel better while they are high on marijuana, such drugs should not be
a substitute for more traditional drugs absent a definitive study.

I would suggest that we accept the lead of the American Medical Association
and the American Cancer Society and conclude that the medical use of
marijuana is inconsistent with scientific evidence and contrary to our
national drug-control strategy. Our national strategy to reduce drug use is
achieving steady success.

The long-term goal of reduced drug abuse is within our grasp.

We are clearly headed in the right direction.