TIME TO RETHINK OUR MARIJUANA LAWS

MANY OF our society's more enduring myths are about marijuana. For a
hundred years it has been the subject of propaganda, demonization,
rabble rousing, and demagoguery; politicians and bureaucrats routinely
lie about its effects on users, declarations the media routinely publish.

A former director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in the United
States claimed "50 per cent of the violent crimes committed ... by
Mexicans, Turks, Filipinos, Greeks, Spaniards, Latin-Americans, and
Negroes" could be traced to "abuse of marijuana." An anti-marijuana
campaign, sponsored by the World Narcotic Defence Association, the
Women's Christian Temperance Union, and the International Narcotic
Association claimed marijuana caused addiction, insanity, and sexual
promiscuity.

In 1974, the Senate Judiciary Committee of the American congress
produced testimony saying marijuana diminished the ability to resist
homosexual advances and made people more susceptible to Communist propaganda.

These are citations from a review of the body of mythology about
marijuana and the body of scientific evidence that disputes it,
produced by Dr. John P. Morgan and Prof. Lynn Zimmer.

The book was published by the Lindesmith Center, a drug-policy
research institute, a decade ago, just three years after the Senate
Judiciary Committee had reported America had been "caught up in a
marijuana-hashish epidemic" which threatened to produce a society
"motivated by a consuming lust for self-gratification and lacking any
higher moral guidance."

Most, if not all, of the misinformation about marijuana circulated
among the general public has been produced by elected politicians and
their appointed officials hired to promote the myths that hide the
truth about the drug. In the protracted "war on drugs" waged in the
U.S., the major casualties have been injuries to the truth.

The most oft-repeated myths about marijuana are that the drug is
highly addictive, that it leads to the use of harder drugs, that more
severe punishment for possession leads to decreased public
consumption, that marijuana kills brain cells, causes crime, damages
the fetus, impairs the immune system, is more damaging to the lungs
than tobacco, is a major cause of highway accidents, is more potent
than it used to be, and that it impairs memory and cognition.

Were all these true, they would represent a substantial indictment of
the drug.

But according to Morgan and Zimmer, they have no basis in scientific
fact. Nonetheless, the authors find these myths repeated "over and
over" in government correspondence, reports, newsletters, and press
releases and in speeches by government officials and "frequently in
newspaper and magazine articles."

Among the more egregious and enduring myths is that marijuana is
addictive. Not so, say Morgan and Zimmer:

"Epidemiological surveys indicate that the large majority of people
who try marijuana do not become long-term frequent users. A study of
adults in their 30s who were first surveyed in high school, found ...
of those who had tried marijuana, 75 per cent had not used it in the
past year and 85 per cent had not used it in the past month.

"In 1994, among Americans 12 and older, 31 per cent had used marijuana
sometime in their lives. Eleven per cent had used it in the past year
and 2.5 per cent had used it an average of once a week or more. Only
0.8 per cent of Americans currently smoke marijuana on a daily or near
daily basis."

The Lindesmith Center describes marijuana as "by far the most commonly
used illegal drug in the United States and in most other countries

... More than 70 million Americans have tried marijuana and more than
20 million have smoked it in the last year (1996)."

Chasing and jailing people possessing or trafficking in marijuana has
become an international sport for politicians, who create laws, and
for the police who must enforce them. It has become an expensive and
losing game.

"The smoking of cannabis," wrote the editors of Lancet, the British
medical journal, "even long term, is not harmful to health."

Medical research is leading to the potential use of cannabis,
according to The Guardian, "as a pain reliever, appetite stimulant,
and anti-nausea treatment."

In the U.S., people are thrown in jail for possession. In Canada,
courts are overwhelmed by marijuana charges. Police time is squandered
in the hopeless efforts to stop people smoking marijuana.

Why are we doing this to ourselves? The result is widespread public
contempt for the law - whatever it is - as well as a shining example
of political cowardice. We should demythologize and legalize the stuff.

And tell our politicians to get off the pot.

Checked-by: "Rich O'Grady"