Con: Pot causes harm

SCOTT WINOKUR
Scott Winokur is an Examiner reporter.

CALLING for the legalization of marijuana recently, former Beatle Paul
McCartney revealed that Bob Dylan had turned him onto the evil weed in 1964
and that McCartney turned Mick Jagger onto it two years later.

There are two things wrong with this story, which appeared in New Statesman
magazine.

The first is that it's hard to believe Jagger didn't smoke a joint before
1966. The second is legalization. It's a bad idea.

While it might cut down on drugrelated crime, the total level of harm
certainly would skyrocket, as more people indulged. Maybe this would be fun
shortterm, but in the long term it's a surefire prescription for societal
disaster.

Then, too, there would be the insidious problem of gardenvariety bad trips
five or six hours of mumblemouthed anxiety, paranoia and even psychosis
(the diagnostic threshold for which is probably lower than you might
imagine). I suspect bad trips occur far more often than is acknowledged.

In the final analysis, using dope is like diving into deep water: There's
no guarantee you'll resurface with your wits intact, or at all. Besides, an
excellent Cabernet will serve almost as well.

UCBerkeley psychologist Robert MacCoun may be the only person on earth as
cleareyed on this subject as I am.

On Friday, Science magazine published a study by MacCoun and a University
of Maryland researcher showing that, in The Netherlands, where pot and hash
are served in coffeehouses, legal access tripled consumption among
18yearolds between 1984 and 1996.

MacCoun and his partner didn't report on the numbers of youths leaping into
Amsterdam's murky canals in that same period, but I'd bet that statistic is
interesting, too.

MacCoun was one of 36 signers of a statement of principles announced Sept.
2 by the Drug Policy Project of the Federation of American Scientists. The
statement rejected both legalization and allout war on drugs, calling for
a "third way," based on moderate, wellreasoned policies that neither
encourage use nor demonize users.

MacCoun also will be a key speaker Nov. 19 at a drug conference sponsored
by the Lindemith Center at the Golden Gate Club in San Francisco's Presidio.

The conference is premised on the idea long held by Mayor Brown that
one of the most meaningful things we can do is to reduce potential harm to
users by making treatment programs and needle exchanges widely available.

"People say harm reduction sends the wrong message, but no one who says
that has ever put forth evidence that it's true," MacCoun said.

"Harm reduction is only a gain; there's no downside. Europeans and
Australians have been much more pragmatic about this."

Treatment doesn't have to work 100 percent to be successful, according to
MacCoun.

"Even if treatment doesn't make someone abstinent, there can be huge gains
for the addict, the addict's family and coworkers if that addict cuts back
and behaves more constructively. Treatment has a good record for doing
that."

Additional money for treatment could come from money now set aside for
incarceration and certain prevention programs.

"We're spending an awful lot," MacCoun said, "on a particular prevention
model that isn't effective the D.A.R.E. program started by the Los
Angeles police.

"There's very weak evidence that it changes attitudes and none that it
changes levels of drug use. The police go into classrooms and exaggerate
some of the risks. But the kids see older kids using marijuana without
getting braindamaged, and then they don't believe the police.

"It would make more sense," MacCoun added, "to send physicians into
classrooms because there are really important risk messages pertaining to
cocaine, hard drugs and psychedelics."

Has the medical marijuana debate impacted the broader debate over
drug policy?

"It's a minor issue. The use of marijuana by medical patients has little to
do with recreational use.

"Unfortunately, some activists behind the movement have used it to further
their real agenda, which is recreational use."