COMPARE MARIJUANA AND RITALIN

Joshua Shenk's report is illuminating, but he largely ignores the value of
the distinction between legal drugs and illegal drugs as a form of social
control. Compare, for example, marijuana and Ritalin.

No one knows the long-term effects of Ritalin, the pills prescribed for
attention deficit disorder. The drug doesn't work for everyone. There is no
consensus on how it relieves symptoms. Reports of non-prescription use by
people seeking a high are increasing. But the act of filling a prescription
for a child just out of kindergarten is met with a sympathetic nod from the
government.

Seek a prescription for marijuana, and the same government is aghast: The
long-term effects are unknown! It doesn't work for everyone! We don't know
how it relieves symptoms! People use it to get high!

Because marijuana, more than other illegal drugs, serves as an emblem of
American nonconformity, many embrace it as a powerful symbol. The crusade
against marijuana offers a way in which we can legally root out and punish
those who refuse to adhere to the expectations of authority. Those who are
caught are labeled and corrected.

Ritalin ultimately brings its users to the same conformist place, with the
help, of course, of our approving government. It is telling that instead of
separating people from mind-altering chemicals, authority sometimes asserts
itself through its sanction of mind-altering chemicals. Of course, the two
drugs treat different maladies. AIDS wasting syndrome, for which marijuana
may relieve suffering, threatens lives, but ADD threatens order in the
classroom. Another difference is that unlike Ritalin, marijuana has no
known toxic dosage.

Stephen Young
Roselle, Ill.