Press Clips by cynthia cotts

POT SHOTS

It's addictive. It causes crime. It leads to hard drugs. These are a few of
the myths generated by the U.S. government in its never-ending war on the
cannabis plant and repeated for decades by uncritical elements of the media.

The myths come and go, according to the needs of the day. Thus, when
marijuana began to gain popularity as a medicine in the 1970s and 1980s, a
new myth was hatched: any benefit perceived by patients is merely a
"placebo" effect.

So it was big news when a myth-free report was issued March 17 by the
Institute of Medicine (IOM), a division of the National Academy of
Sciences. The report's findings: marijuana is not addictive. It does not
lead to hard drugs. And lo and behold: cannabinoids, the active chemical
compounds in natural marijuana, "appear to hold potential for treating
pain, chemotherapy- induced nausea and vomiting, and the poor appetite and
wasting caused by AIDS or advanced cancer."

Many reports had touted marijuana's medical value before; now the outcast
herb had been validated once again by a formal authority. On March 18,
national headlines trumpeted the news: "Pot Has Uses as Medicine, U.S.
Panel Says," "U.S. Panel Sees Potential for Medical Marijuana," "Government
Study of Marijuana Sees Medical Benefits." In subheads and on the jump came
the report's strongly worded caveat: smoking is not an ideal delivery
method, for marijuana or any substance.

This was a remarkable piece of good publicity for a blacklisted drug. And
while the IOM report was generally positive, the coverage grew ever more
glowing in the hands of a clever spinmeister, Chuck Thomas, the director of
communications for the Washington, D.C.­based Marijuana Policy Project
(MPP). Indeed, Thomas, 29, was quoted on page one of several stories that
day. Typical is the quote he gave to The Washington Post: "This report . .
. clearly shows that there is scientific evidence that marijuana has bona
fide therapeutic effects for some patients."

Marijuana is medicine? Amazingly, that was the complete opposite of the
spin Clinton drug czar Barry McCaffrey put on the report, which he
commissioned in the wake of the 1996 pro-marijuana referendum in
California— apparently in hopes of generating bad publicity for the pesky
drug. His official response to the report, in four words: "More research is
needed."

Bob Weiner, McCaffrey's spokesman at the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, seizes the opportunity to point out that the advocates and the
media are misleading the public when they say marijuana is medicine.
"That's not what the report said!" cries Weiner. "It said that smoked
marijuana is dangerous and that there is no future for smoked marijuana!"

The day the IOM report was released in Washington, McCaffrey held a news
conference in Los Angeles at which he downplayed the value of smoked
marijuana, telling reporters that in the future, you won't "find someone
with prostate cancer with a 'blunt' stuck in his face." Substituting his
message for Thomas's, he used the conference to promote Marinol, a
cannabinoid pill that is already on the market, and to call on drug
companies to back new means of delivering cannabinoids, such as inhalers,
patches, and suppositories.

In many stories, Thomas's spin came first; McCaffrey's did not turn up
until later. That might have been because the drug czar was in L.A., not
D.C., or it might have been because the IOM report explicitly contradicted
his 1996 claim that there is not "a shred of evidence that smoked marijuana
is useful or needed." That blooper was broadcast last week in the lead of a
skeptical story on ABCNews.com, as well as in the conservative New York
Post. And while the drug czar appeared to be publicly endorsing the IOM
report, the advocates of medical marijuana were busy painting a different
picture.

"This report is General McCaffrey's worst nightmare," one advocate told the
Boston Globe. "This report has proved McCaffrey wrong," another told The
New York Times. "McCaffrey really hates this report," Thomas explains, "but
he'll say he likes it, so people won't say he's been blown out of the water."

So how did the advocates steal the narrative from the drug czar? It didn't
hurt that MPP got in at the ground level. "We worked on the IOM project
since it was first announced," says Thomas, "giving them information,
recommending experts, bringing patients to their hearings."

Then last month, MPP teamed up with the New York­based Lindesmith Center
and the Santa Monica­based Americans for Medical Rights, all three of which
are funded in part by financier George Soros. Members of the three
drug-reform groups began talking on conference calls, plotting a media
strategy that would take advantage of the report's imminent release.
Between them, they hired two PR firms, sent out press kits, and lined up
patients who smoke marijuana to be interviewed. They contacted reporters
likely to cover the story and encouraged them to visit an archive of
scientific information posted at www.medmjscience.org.

"We were surprised that reporters knew as little as they did," says Michael
Shellenberger, director of the San Francisco­based PR firm Communication
Works. "For most reporters, the history of medical marijuana began in 1996.
Most of them had never heard of the Shafer Commission [which recommended
that Nixon decriminalize marijuana in 1972], and most didn't know that the
Chinese had been using marijuana for thousands of years."

Although Thomas believed the report's conclusions would be positive, he did
not know exactly what it would say. So it was a lucky break for him when on
March 16, the day before the news broke, "a sympathetic reporter was kind
enough to give us an embargoed copy." MPP's local PR firm, Rabinowitz Media
Strategies, had booked Thomas to be interviewed on CNN that day, and having
the report in advance gave him the advantage of being able to comment on
point. He began telling reporters he was ready to discuss the report before
the embargo was lifted on March 17.

But when the IOM learned that MPP had an advance copy, spokesman Dan Quinn
called Thomas and beseeched him not to break the embargo, lest other news
outlets decide to do so as well. (For example, The New York Times has a
policy of not breaking embargoes unless someone else does it first.)

Thomas had been planning to hold a news conference outside the National
Academy of Sciences on March 17, immediately following the release of the
report that would take place inside. Thus, recognizing that having the
report gave him a bargaining chip, he agreed not to break the embargo, in
exchange for a promise that the IOM would not break up his news conference.

The question we normally ask about a drug is whether it's safe and
effective. And while the IOM report was unequivocal in its finding that
marijuana works for some patients, it carefully hedged the issue of health
risks. By calling marijuana smoke a risk factor for cancer and lung damage,
it gave the government one last myth to work with: the idea that marijuana
is dangerous.

If McCaffrey's strategy was to play up the harmful effects of smoking, it
definitely worked. In her story on March 18, New York Times reporter Sheryl
Gay Stolberg wrote that marijuana smoke "can cause cancer, lung damage and
complications during pregnancy." In that and subsequent stories, the Times
loosely used the word "toxic" to describe pot smoke. Obviously, there is
some risk in smoking burning leaves, but marijuana is relatively safe, as
drugs go, according to the report. And the IOM found no proof that it
causes cancer.

Perhaps the biggest wild card was where the editorials would come down on
the implications of the report for government policy. In what Americans for
Medical Rights spokesman Dave Fratello calls "the most significant policy
outgrowth of this entire report," the IOM recommended that the government
begin limited experiments to provide medical marijuana to patients who need
it.

It's too early to tell, but so far, no major paper has defended McCaffrey's
wait-and-see attitude. First to depart from the status quo were New York
Newsday, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times, which came out in
support of medical marijuana on March 19. The Sun-Times mocked the drug
czar as apparently "in search of a yes man," while the Tribune called for
"courageous political leadership."

On March 20, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Dayton Daily News, and the
Louisville Courier-Journal chimed in on the call for a change. Sample
quotes: Though McCaffrey "appears likely to shelve the study," his
"exaggerated fears and inflexible views should not trump the legitimate
needs of suffering people." On March 22, the Atlanta Journal opined, "This
report gives the Clinton administration a strong scientific basis to
abandon its illogical policy."

Meanwhile, the editorial writers in New York, Washington, and L.A. have
been silent. What are they waiting for? Perhaps in a situation like this,
the truth can come only from a conservative and former medical marijuana
user like Richard Brookhiser. In a March 22 New York Times op-ed,
Brookhiser wrote, "For obvious reasons, there has been no leadership on
this issue from President Clinton, who began his career of evasion at the
national level by telling us he didn't inhale."