RENEWED TOLERANCE OF MARIJUANA TAKING HOLD

Olympic, playground incidents boost awareness

Given how marijuana's side effects include a duller memory, it's somehow
fitting that one researcher concluded America's renewed tolerance for pot
is due to "generational forgetting."

Consider how California and Arizona voters shrugged off federal laws and
the need for Food and Drug Administration testing. They instead gave a
ballot-box high-five to medical use of marijuana.

Or consider the International Olympic Committee's vote this week on
technical grounds to reinstate a gold medal to Canadian snowboarder Ross
Rebagliati, after he was stripped of the honor for testing positive for
marijuana. People in Rebagliati's corner included leaders of Canada's
conservative Reform Party, which had been known for promoting fierce
anti-drug policies.

Or consider the softening attitudes about pot that were first detected in
1989 by the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future Survey. Those
findings came just before a five-year run of steady increases in marijuana
use among children in the eighth, 10th and 12th grades.

Or consider how officials in the NBA and the NFL have unofficially adopted
a policy of "test but don't tell" on pot.

All of it came home to the Chicago region this week when an 8-year-old was
caught showing off a small quantity of marijuana to a buddy on the
playground at their Skokie grade school.

Forces on both sides of the political front line say the pendulum has
definitely shifted back, just not all the way.

In the 1970's, there were stores with pot-pipe display cases in every town.

In the 1980s, there were DARE officers in every school.

Today, we have drug testing at work, and we don't have any new Cheech and
Chong movies. But we do have more secretive use and general tolerance.

"Certainly awareness of cannabis is a little bit more out of the closet due
to hemp and medical marijuana," said Peter Gorman, editor-in-chief of "High
Times," the New York-based magazine that is strongly pro-legalization.

"The voters realized it's not just 'the devil's weed' all of the time,"
Gorman said, pointing to the referendum results in Arizona and California.

Still, even pot enthusiasts like Gorman and pro-legalization lobbyists say
there remains a strong "anxiety" in America about general use of marijuana.
That concern is particularly strong for children, but it extends to fears
about impaired driving, Gorman said.

Even if society is more "permissive," it was still shocked by the tale of
the 8-year-old, Skokie crime prevention officer Vincent Pszczolkowski said.
Publicity drew dozens of inquiries.

The child claimed to have found the drugs, and police considered it an
isolated incident.

Yet Pszczolkowski expressed discomfort with the fact that the Olympic
ruling came in the same week. Giving the snowboarder the medal demonstrated
a general loosening of marijuana standards, he said.

"Marijuana is an illegal substance, and it's proven over the years to be
harmful, and the thing about the Olympic competition is that all those
people are role models, and I wouldn't want my kid to identify with that
kind of role model," Pszczolkowski said. "It just reflects badly on society
... The Olympics are supposed to be about these great ideals, these great
sports figures, the perfect mind and body, and these just seem like
throwbacks to the 1980s."

According to the University of Michigan and the Office of National Drug
Control Policy, researchers have found societal attitudes have shifted.

Last month, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the federal drug-control
agency, gave a detailed counterattack to the passage of referenda in
California and Arizona. He had stumped against them.

After they were approved, the federal government effectively discouraged
doctors from prescribing marijuana by threatening to make arrests based on
federal laws or to revoke professional licenses.

McCaffrey nonetheless told congress the ballot initiatives "have sent a
confusing message to our children concerning marijuana that could not come
at a worse time."

He cited government surveys that found marijuana use had tripled among
eight-graders between 1991 and 1996. The University of Michigan's
Monitoring the Future Survey measured similar increases.

The MFS measured that marijuana use went from 3.2 percent to 11.3 percent
between 1991 and 1996 among eighth-graders; from 8.1 percent to 20.4
percent in those same years among 10th-graders and from 11.9 percent to
21.9 percent among 12th-graders.

Those increases began occurring two years after the MFS reported that for
the first time in years, fewer children were identifying as "dangerous."

Last December, MFS researcher Lloyd Johnson reported that marijuana use
appeared to be leveling off among some age levels, and that the rate of
increase was dropping at others.

"This still leaves us with unacceptably high levels of teen drug use,"
Johnston said.

The numbers make a case for continued vigilance, Johnston said.

"Otherwise, what we have termed 'generational forgetting' is likely to
occur again with a new wave of children growing up not learning what their
predecessors learned about the consequences of drug use."

Gorman, who considers drug use a "personal choice," countered that adults
should be punished not for using drugs, but only the acts they commit, such
as causing auto wrecks or committing a violent crime.