SURVEY PROVES DRUG WARRIORS WRONG AGAIN
Dear Editor,

It was good to read that national teen drug abuse seems to be declining.
That is good news, not only for the parents of America, but for medical
marijuana patients as well. Medical marijuana has been a hotbutton political
item since 1996. Drug Czar McCaffrey, and other drug policy makers in
government predicted that approving the medical use of marijuana would drive
up teenage experimentation with marijuana by sending a message of social
acceptability to children that they would somehow be unable to resist.

The Drug Czar and all those drug war bureaucrats and politicians are wrong
again.

The 1998 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse shows no change from
previous marijuana usage levels for adults or teens.

Despite the fact that since 1996, medical patients in California have been
openly growing and using medical marijuana upon a doctors recommendation,
there are no statistically significant differences in reported marijuana
usage rates among 12- to 17-year-olds in California than in the rest of the
nation.

Indeed, none of the seven states that passed medical marijuana laws
registered an increase in teenage marijuana use.

I continue to believe our children are much smarter than we give them credit
for.

sincerely,

Arthur Sobey