TIME TO RETHINK THE WAR ON POT

Many of the more enduring myths in our society are about marijuana.

It has been for a hundred years 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 that ``50 per cent of the violent crimes commited ... 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 Defense 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 that surrounds
the subject of marijuana and the body of scientific evidence that disputes
it, produced by John P. Morgan, MD 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 marijauna-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 United States,
the major casualties have been injuries to the truth.

The most oft-repeated myths about marijauna 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 and causes psychological impairment.

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 age 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.

Meanwhile, the ``problem'' has been studied to death. In 1894, the Indian
Hemp Commission found the moderate use of hemp drugs ``is practically
attended by no evil results at all.'' The (U.S.) Panama Canal Zone Report,
published in 1925, found ``There is no evidence ... that (marijuana) has
any appreciable influence on the individual using it.''

The Wooten Report (1969) in Britain, Canada's LeDain Commission (1970), the
American Shafer Commission (1972), the Dutch (1972) and Australian (1977)
commissions, and the National Academy of Sciences Report (1982) all reached
the same conclusion as the Hemp Commission had a century ago.

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

Recent medical research is leading to the potential use of cannabis,
according to the Guardian newspaper, ``as a pain reliever, appetite
stimulant and anti-nausea treatment.''

In the United States, people are thrown in jail for possession. The courts
in our country are overwhelmed by marijuana charges, and the time and work
of the police are 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.

Dalton Camp is a political commentator and broadcaster. His column appears
Sunday and Wednesday.