MARIJUANA IS HARMFUL, HURTS TEENS' ABILITY TO LEARN, WRITERS SAY

Thomas J. Keinz's contention that "marijuana is dangerous" comes from
firsthand observation.

"I was in the military for 20 years and I saw how marijuana messed
people up," Keinz told me last week. Keinz's Oct. 3 letter to the
editor (reprinted with this column) energized 67 people to write and
disagree with his view.

I told Keinz, and I predicted in last week's column, that people who
agreed with his opinion about marijuana would send letters this week.

I overestimated the response. Only two people sent information
supporting Keinz.

One was Beverly Darsie, prevention specialist for the Winnebago
County Health Department. Darsie also is chair of the Cherry Valley
Regional Drug Free Coalition of which Keinz is a member.

Darsie sent an e-mail from the National Youth Anti-Drug Media
Campaign. The campaign wants to warn parents that marijuana use can
threaten their children's academic success.

The e-mail says studies show:

- - Marijuana can hinder a teen's ability to learn. Heavy marijuana use
impairs young people's ability to concentrate and retain information.

- - Marijuana use is linked to poorer grades. A teen with a 'D' average
is four times more likely to have marijuana than a teen with an 'A' average.

- - Marijuana and underage drinking are linked to higher dropout rates.
Students who drink or use drugs frequently are up to five times more
likely than their peers to drop out of high school. A teenage
marijuana user's odds of dropping out are more than twice a
nonusers'. # Teens who begin marijuana use at an early age when the
brain is still developing may be more vulnerable to
neuropsychological deficits, especially verbal abilities.

Darsie said Oct. 22-29 is Red Ribbon Week. The Red Ribbon program is
a substance abuse education program that has been an important part
of spreading the drug-free message.

The other response came from Helen Decker of Freeport. Decker sent
letters she had published in the Freeport Journal Standard, a letter
she sent to President Bush and a couple of articles excerpted from
the 1974 hearings by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Internal
Security on the "marijuana-hashish epidemic."

"I do not agree ... that we do not have scientific proof marijuana
shows no long-term or permanent damage," Decker wrote in a letter
published in 1984.

"... the testimony of 21 world famous scientists who testified in
Washington, proved marijuana to be harmful and dangerous. Because of
money and political gain their findings were not widely published.
The fact marijuana has not been legalized is proof in itself that it
is harmful."

Decker's letter goes on to list eight reasons why scientists say
marijuana is dangerous.

Far more people wrote in to say it is not.

"Our country is taking good kids and making criminals out of them and
taking good American citizens and making criminals out of them, so I
cannot agree more with your writers supporting legalizing marijuana,"
wrote Mary A. High of Rockford.

With her letter High included "some of my research papers which I
have learned after studying this good drug which was used to cure
many diseases and mental problems in our past history."

"Marijuana is a drug created by God, I believe, to help humans and
not to destroy them," she continued. "It is our lawmakers with their
dirty minds who are giving this great drug its bad name."

Clifford Schaffer of Agua Dulce, Calif., is director of DRCNet Online
Library of Drug Policy. He contends that marijuana is not a
significant threat to public health.

"Before you publish those rebuttal letters, you might want to take a
look at Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy under http://
www.druglibrary.org/schaffer," Schaffer wrote. "That collection
includes the full text of most of the major studies of the subject
over the last 100 years, including the largest study ever done by the
U.S. government.

"They all concluded that the marijuana laws were based on ignorance
and nonsense and should have been repealed long ago because they do
more harm than good.

"You will have a better understanding of why they said that if you
read the short history of the marijuana laws at www.druglibrary.org/
schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

"Just FYI, my online library was the basis for the four-hour History
Channel Special 'Hooked: Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way.'"

Next week I'll wrap up this topic with a few more interesting letters.

Wally Haas is editorial page editor of the Rockford Register Star.