DRUG CZAR DELIVERS ANTI-POT SPEECH

He Says Marijuana Advocates 'Living In A World Of Falsehoods'

U.S. drug czar John Walters practically walked into the lion's den
yesterday as he warned of the perils of marijuana in the Seattle area.

Washington already has a voter-approved state statute that allows medicinal
use of marijuana for a short list of chronic diseases. Seattle is just a
three-hour drive from the Canadian province that not only has extremely lax
enforcement for crimes involving marijuana but also produces tons of the
most potent varieties in the world.

And a proposal before Seattle voters next year known as Initiative 75 would
make the investigation, arrest and prosecution of adults for marijuana
possession Seattle's lowest law enforcement priority.

But Walters drummed a steady beat in an appearance in Bellevue before a
sympathetic audience against going easy on pot. It is not benign, he said.

"For those people who are being told that marijuana is a soft drug -- they
are living in a world of falsehoods," said Walters, who oversees the Bush
administration's $19 billion anti-drug programs as director of the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

However, the sponsor of Initiative 75, Dominic Holden, said there is no
reason to panic about marijuana. Legalizing the drug, he said, would prove
more effective at protecting children than continuing to outlaw it.

Walters spoke in Bellevue yesterday to a group for whom the pain of
addiction needed no explanation -- about 400 recovering drug addicts and
alcoholics in town for a national convention.

"We're tired of picking up the pieces of people whose lives should never
have been shattered in the first place," Walters said.

He said he didn't come to the Northwest because of Initiative 75 but
because he had promised to speak at the convention months ago.

However, he said he felt that it and other marijuana initiatives in Arizona
and Nevada, which he's visited on his trip West, undermine the
administration's efforts to identify and reduce the threat posed by drugs
to the American people, especially children.

Holden, chairman of the board for Sensible Seattle Coalition, which is
sponsoring I-75, said Walters' visit is part of a well-funded national
campaign and in line with the drug war.

He said that "continuing to give distorted facts about marijuana and making
large arrests don't address the problems associated with drug abuse."

"One of the battle cries for this anti-marijuana campaign is 'what about
the children,' " Holden said. But he and others in the national movement to
decriminalize marijuana say that a much more effective way to keep the drug
away from children would be to regulate it much like alcohol.

"And it would generate enormous local tax revenue," he said.

Holden said Walters won't have much effect on Seattleites, who turn out
100,000 at a time for Seattle's annual celebration of marijuana, "Hempfest."

"Adults that smoke marijuana are not criminals, and it's a waste of time
and law-enforcement resources," he said.

Walters maintained that marijuana is the single biggest source of addiction
this country faces. Of 6 million people who could benefit from treatment,
62 percent are dependent on marijuana, Walters said.

He also takes issue with the contention circulated widely among those who
advocate legalizing marijuana, that jails are overflowing with low-level,
non-violent offenders who use marijuana.

That is a lie, he said. Most of those in jail for possession of marijuana
plead down to avoid stiffer sentences for harsher crimes, he said.

"We can't face the drug problem without dealing with marijuana," Walters
said. "Americans must begin to confront drug use -- and therefore drug
users -- honestly and directly."

"There's no question of the flow of high-potency marijuana from B.C. is a
threat. We are working with authorities up there," he said. " I've asked
them to consider learning the lesson we've paid such a high price to learn
. . . More drug use is bad for every family, every city, every country."