POT, TRUTH AND THE DEA

Colorado will be voting on whether to legalize possession of marijuana
this November, and the Drug Enforcement Administration is not amused.

When Safer Colorado, the group sponsoring a statewide ballot
initiative to legalize the possession of small quantities of pot (up
to one ounce) for personal use, turned in petitions with 129,000
signatures last month - twice as many as necessary to make ballot -
the DEA sprung, or more accurately slithered, into action.

According to a story in the Daily Camera, DEA agent Michael Moore sent
out an e-mail to professional political consultants seeking a campaign
manager for the drive to defeat the initiative. The e-mail, which was
sent from a Department of Justice computer, claims that a group
opposed to the initiative has $10,000 to launch the campaign, and that
anyone interested should call him at his DEA office.

Asked to explain why a federal law enforcement agency was involving
itself in the lawmaking process of a state, Jeff Sweetin, the special
agent in charge of the DEA's Denver office, said "my mantra has been,
if Americans use the democratic process to make change, we're in favor
of that. We're in favor of the democratic process. But as a caveat,
we're in favor of it working on based on all the facts."

Huh?

The Drug Enforcement Administration is the last place on earth that
anyone should turn to for accurate information on marijuana. The DEA
and its predecessor agencies like the Bureau of Narcotics have a
70-year record of brazenly lying about marijuana.

Here are a few of the lies the agency and its predecessors have told
since 1937:

Marijuana causes people generally and Blacks and Hispanics in
particular to become violent. In 1937, Harry Anslinger, the Director
of the Bureau of Narcotics, testified before Congress that Marijuana
"is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind." The
truth is that marijuana is one of the least violence-causing drugs in
the history of mankind and there is no known difference as to how
different races or ethnic groups respond to it. When it comes to
inducing violence, alcohol is drug of choice.

Marijuana is an addictive drug. Today the DEA has stopped claiming
marijuana is physically addictive, but continues to claim it is
psychologically addictive - whatever that means. The truth is
marijuana is among the least addictive drugs known to man. Legal
alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine are all more addictive. Moreover,
marijuana is probably the single easiest recreational drug to stop
using - far easier than alcohol or tobacco.

Marijuana causes cancer. Marijuana smoke contains more cancer-causing
tars than tobacco and users keep it in their lungs longer. Therefore
the DEA surmised that marijuana use causes cancer. Bad surmise. The
most recent study, conducted by Dr. Donald Tashkin of UCLA, who has
spent a lifetime trying to prove that marijuana causes cancer but who
is an honest scientist, found no link between marijuana use and cancer.

Marijuana is a "gateway drug" that leads to harder drug use. No it
isn't. The gateway drugs are alcohol and tobacco. However - and this
is important - illegal marijuana use is the principal gateway to
illegal drug use. The way to close that particular gate is to make pot
use lawful.

Today's marijuana is much stronger than the marijuana of the 1960s. It
isn't, but even if it was so what? If it was, all it would mean is
that people would smoke less of it to get stoned. Arguing that that
the appearance of stronger pot is a reason that marijuana should be
illegal is like arguing that the invention of scotch is a reason all
alcohol beverages should be illegal.

Legalizing marijuana would send the "wrong message" to our kids. This
may be the most self-serving lie of all. Kids aren't stupid. They can
tell when adults are lying and being hypocritical, and they quickly
tune out the liars and hypocrites. It's no secret that most drug
education programs in the schools are at best limited successes. What
do you suppose that has something to do with the fact that the
instructors have to say a lot of things about pot that they know
aren't true - and that contaminates the rest of their message.

Keeping pot illegal when it's clearly less harmful than the legal
recreational drugs is the wrong message. And the chronic liars at the
DEA are clearly the wrong messengers. The only role the agency should
play in the Colorado marijuana initiative should be running corrective
advertising for its past lies.