KEEP MARIJUANA ILLEGAL - FOR TEENS

Recent surveys, both in Canada and the US, have documented a dramatic rise
in marijuana use among adolescents since 1992. This increase has caused
much official consternation, and after four years of relative silence on
the issue the Clinton administration will mount a new, 195 million dollar
media campaign against drugs, with adolescent marijuana use a major focus.

Teens, it turns out, don't seem particularly worried about pot. The rise in
the number of young people who have tried marijuana over the last five
years has been accompanied by a decline in the risk they perceive of
smoking it occasionally. Meanwhile, the use of hard drugs such as cocaine
and heroin has stayed far below that of marijuana, and adolescents perceive
these substances as far more risky to use than pot.

Perhaps teens recognize what the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
has been at pains recently to deny: that there are valid distinctions
between soft and hard drugs in addictiveness and potential for harm, and
that such distinctions can inform one's choice of psychoactive substance.
Occasional use of marijuana is perceived by many, mostly older, adolescents
as no more harmful than using alcohol or tobacco.

Teens, in short, are not stupid, and in this case their perceptions are
pretty much on the mark. Although certainly not risk free (few psychoactive
substances are), marijuana compares favorably to alcohol and tobacco with
regard to health hazards and potential for abuse. Consequently, the
attempt to tar it with the same brush as cocaine and heroin simply
backfires, undercutting the credibility of both NIDA and beleaguered
parents, who are asked to instill fear of the "evil weed" into their
increasingly skeptical children.

Much is made of pot being a gateway drug which leads to further
experimentation and addiction, but as even NIDA admits, most of those who
try marijuana don't progress to other drugs or become addicts. Except for
powerfully reinforcing drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, it's
not the particular substance one encounters that usually leads to abuse.
Rather, it's a combination of risk factors - parents' and peers' substance
use, poor social adjustment, low expectations of achievement, and idle
after school hours - which increase the probability of abuse and
dependence. If marijuana is a gateway to hard drugs at all, it is most
likely due to its illicit and counter-cultural status: the purveyors of pot
can put your adolescent in touch with the local crack connection, while the
glamour of defying the ban on marijuana may transfer to using more
dangerous substances.

None of this is to deny that using marijuana has its risks and long term
effects, and its use by developing adolescents should therefore remain
illegal and be strongly discouraged. As the disastrous health consequences
of cigarette smoking make clear, the psychoactive ingredient of marijuana,
delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), would best be ingested without inhaling
the carcinogenic byproducts of a burning plant. (Marijuana may actually be
worse than tobacco in this respect.) While not nearly as devastating as
chronic alcoholism, the regular and prolonged use of THC may compromise
short term memory and perhaps other cognitive functions, and preliminary
research, although by no means definitive, has also implicated THC as an
immune system suppressor. Even though non-smoked THC is approved for
medical purposes, and thus has been found safe and effective for some
applications, its recreational use (as for alcohol and nicotine) should
remain occasional, and restricted to those over 21. (In Canada, the legal
age for alcohol use is 18 or 19, depending on the province, and for
purchase of tobacco is 18 - Ed.) Pregnant women should avoid it, and the
penalties that now apply to drunk driving should also apply to those who
drive under the influence of THC.

Despite its bad official press, THC actually ranks lowest in addictive
potential of all commonly used substances, even below caffeine, according
to two independent ratings by NIDA and the University of California. Lab
animals cannot be induced to consistently self-administer THC, as they can
with opiates, amphetamines, cocaine, alcohol and nicotine. Nevertheless,
NIDA has made much of recent research, published in the journal Science,
showing that cannabis acts on the same reward mechanisms in the brain as do
other drugs. Rats given large and regular doses of THC or a synthetic
equivalent showed withdrawal symptoms when doses were abruptly stopped. But
this rather unsurprising result, which holds for alcohol and nicotine as
well, doesn't show THC to be especially problematic, just that its heavy
use may in some cases lead to habituation. The fact remains that marijuana
is simply not in the same class as heroin and crack, drugs which act far
more powerfully and specifically on those brain sites implicated in
dependence. This means that its increased availability following
decriminalization for adults would not result, as some fear, in an epidemic
of cannabis abuse.

The best argument, perhaps, for keeping marijuana illegal across the board
is that we simply don't need another widely available intoxicating
substance, however benign, which might deflect adolescents from the
necessary business of putting their lives together. But the horse is
already well clear of the barn. In recent surveys many teens say that it's
nearly as easy to get marijuana as alcohol and cigarettes. Drug enforcement
hawks will reply that this means stricter sanctions are necessary, but how
strict are we willing to get to suppress a drug that, used in moderation
and in a non-smoked form, is no more risky (subtracting the risks of
criminal prosecution) than having an occasional glass of wine with dinner?

Such policy questions should be addressed while keeping in mind the
contingent history of our relationship with psychoactive substances. Since
things could have turned out quite differently, we shouldn't suppose that
our current legal selection of drugs is ultimately correct. Marijuana, not
tobacco, might have become the fashionable ingredient for cigarettes in
European salons, and alcohol might now be illegal had prohibition survived.
What then drives the ideology that would forbid any marijuana use, and that
absurdly classifies it with much more dangerous substances?

Some opponents of decriminalizing marijuana fear that it would set us on a
slippery slope toward accepting any and all drugs, but this fear is
irrational precisely because all drugs are not the same. We justly balk at
sanctioning the use of substances that are highly addictive and harmful, as
in the growing effort to curtail tobacco sales to minors. Other opponents,
most of them hardly teetotalers, share the conventional prejudice that
getting high on pot is somehow morally suspect. They suppose that some
intoxicants (the currently legal ones, it just so happens) are fine while
the rest are corrupting, and that therefore we shouldn't expand our
repertoire of even mildly altered states. But if the effects of alcohol,
nicotine and caffeine used in moderation are perfectly acceptable, why not
those of THC, used in moderation?

Some will object that moderation in the use of marijuana is exactly what
cannot be guaranteed; that decriminalizing pot for adults would inevitably
increase the number of users (some teenagers included) that abuse the drug
and fall prey to its possibly damaging long-term effects. Granting this
point, the issue then becomes whether the social and personal benefits of
lifting the ban on marijuana outweigh the harms of a potential increase in
abuse.

This is exactly parallel to the dilemma faced by those who wanted to end
alcohol prohibition: since prohibition helped to reduce alcohol-related
addiction, disease and accidents, how could one responsibly advocate its
repeal? Nevertheless, prohibition ended when it became clear that the
personal liberty to enjoy alcohol, restrained by reasonable public health
and law enforcement safeguards, was deemed a greater good than heavy-handed
attempts to reduce alcohol-related harms. Similarly, it is difficult to
justify the staggering costs of the marijuana ban - the person-hours of
drug enforcement, the ultimately futile attempts at crop eradication, the
overloaded courts, and the draconian jail sentences (in the US) - when
weighed against the small increase in abuse that decriminalization for
adults might entail. If we want proportionality between the sanctions
against a drug and its potential for harm, then criminal penalties for
personal marijuana use should be abolished.

If we fail to reconsider our current policy, and continue to exaggerate the
evils of any and all cannabis use, teenagers will judge adults hypocritical
and continue to light up joints as they chant "Just say no!". A better
course would be to introduce teens to the responsibilities, pleasures and
risks of adult life by informing them accurately about drugs and addiction,
just as we do (or should do) for sexuality, diet, exercise and careers. A
scientifically grounded consideration of psychoactive substances, unclouded
by the prohibitionist reflex, will show THC, like alcohol, to be
comparatively harmless when used responsibly by adults. By being straight
with kids, and ourselves, about pot's active ingredient, we'll gain
credibility and strengthen the case against truly dangerous and addictive
drugs. If we respect our children's intelligence, the chances are they'll
behave more intelligently.

In our public health campaigns we should vigorously advise against smoking
marijuana, while exploring safer means of ingesting recreational THC which
standardize a moderate dose and guarantee purity. As with alcohol and
nicotine, we should limit its availability to adolescents by establishing a
minimum age for possession, enforced by appropriate sanctions. Use of THC
by adults could be regulated by prohibiting any sales or public
consumption, with civil penalties - not jail sentences - for infractions.
Whatever course we adopt, there are clearly many policy options short of
commercial legalization that would improve upon the absurdly punitive
status quo. There would, of course, be many devils in the details of
regulating decriminalization, but none nearly as onerous as our foolish
obsession with attaining a cannabis-free culture.

Even with the most enlightened policies, some cannabis use by teens will
inevitably continue, but we won't be denying them the drug on the spurious
basis that there is something especially bad about THC. We'll be denying
it for the same good reasons we deny them nicotine, alcohol, or any other
psychoactive substance: successful physical and psychological maturation is
jeopardized by adolescent drug use, and at their age they've got more
important things to do, such as fashioning a life that doesn't revolve
around looking cool or getting high.

Thomas W. Clark