CENSORING POT MESSAGES

SAY WHAT YOU want about marijuana use making a person unfocused and
forgetful pot advocates have mastered the complexities of HTML. Hundreds of
beautifully designed pro-marijuana sites light up the Web, offering
bong-induced testimonials and pot brownie recipes to information seekers
and a viable network of medical marijuana proponents worldwide.

Even unrepentant stoner Tommy Chong has managed to establish a dynamic
pro-marijuana Web presence, with flashing graphics and, yes, working links.

Still, nearly every American will be hit with at least one antimarijuana
message this year, by way of either classroom lecture, print ad, or
television or movie-theater public service announcement.

The well-funded and powerfully persuasive view that marijuana is dangerous
dominates every media outlet, except one: the Internet.

Positive marijuana messages rule cyberspace, where it doesn't require
millions to state your case, just a mere $20 a month. This, of course,
infuriates antidrug forces. Some, like California senator Dianne Feinstein,
have tried to wipe out the Internet's pro-marijuana slant with several
proposed laws limiting what can be said about illegal drugs on the Internet.

Feinstein's latest attempt is the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act.
This heavy-handed bill is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which
is chaired by conservative senator and bill cosponsor Orrin Hatch.

The proposed law masquerades as a worthy effort to wipe out methamphetamine
labs, making it a felony to distribute information on how to set one up.
The bill is designed to give law enforcement another weapon in the battle
to control potentially explosive meth labs, which are turning up in
alarming numbers in residential areas. Fair enough. Who wants a meth lab in
the neighborhood?

The problem is that the bill overreaches this goal and makes it illegal to
circulate information on the manufacture of any controlled substance
including marijuana by any means, including the Internet.

Passage of this bill would crash the pot party in cyberspace, as well as
chill any legitimate exchange of information about marijuana, be it on a
Web site, in a book, a magazine, or even a conversation.

As the author of a recent book on marijuana, I find this bill particularly
troubling. Though the book delves into such areas as marijuana's legal
history and its influence on culture, it also contains several pages on
marijuana growing, a topic hard to ignore, since pot is America's number
one cash crop.

The Feinstein-Hatch bill would make writing and publishing such a book a
crime. And if a publisher promoted such a book by linking to, say, the Web
site for High Times magazine, the publisher could be charged with a felony.

This type of backdoor approach to controlling legitimate free speech is
deceitful and unconstitutional.

There are more than 10 million regular marijuana smokers in America, and as
many as 70 million who have tried it at least once. There is widespread
public support for medical use of marijuana.

Even if some people wish it would go away, marijuana continues to have a
powerful effect on American culture. That perspective has found an
affordable public forum on the Web.

If antidrug forces want to muzzle this free exchange of ideas, they
shouldn't try to disguise it as something that it isn't. In other words,
"Just Say So.”

Saul Rubin is a veteran journalist and the author of Offbeat Marijuana
(Santa Monica Press).