WASHINGTON'S MARIJUANA LIE

The White House's War on Drugs Is Off the Mark

Last year, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy ran
an ad in newspapers around the country, warning parents, "Quite a few
people think that smoking pot is less likely to cause cancer than a
regular cigarette.

"You may even have heard some parents say they'd rather their kid
smoked a little pot than get hooked on cigarettes. Wrong, and wrong again."

The same message was included in a television spot aimed at young
people, titled "Four Cigarettes."

Actually, it was the White House that was wrong.

Even very heavy marijuana smokers are not at increased risk for lung
cancer, according to a new study.

On May 23, University of Californa-Los Angeles researcher Dr. Donald
Tashkin presented new findings that should make the White House stop
lying about this issue. But don't count on it.

In the UCLA study, even people who had smoked more than 22,000
marijuana cigarettes had no increase in lung cancer rates, while for
heavy cigarette smokers, the risk of lung cancer was increased by
2,000 percent.

The new data are important but not a surprise.

In a 10-year, 65,000-patient study conducted at the Kaiser-Permanente
HMO, Dr. Stephen Sidney found the same result: Cigarette smokers had
much higher rates of cancer of the lung, mouth and throat than non-
smokers, but marijuana smokers who didn't smoke tobacco had no such increase.

Others experts agree.

In its 1999 White House-commissioned report, "Marijuana and Medicine:
Assessing the Science Base," the prestigious Institute of Medicine
reported, "There is no conclusive evidence that marijuana causes
cancer in humans, including cancers usually related to tobacco use."

This is not exactly obscure research. The White House simply ignored it.

And there is actually a great deal of evidence that marijuana's
active components, called cannabinoids, may stop tumor growth and
selectively kill cancer cells, leaving normal cells untouched.

If that seems surprising, it shouldn't. Dozens of lab and animal
studies, published in some of the world's leading medical journals,
have documented these effects. But the mass media have rarely
reported on them, and our government has ignored this important work,
just as it ignores anything that might contradict official dogma.

The ethical thing for the Office of National Drug Control Policy to
do would be to publicly retract its misleading ads. Correcting errors
and even issuing full retractions of stories that prove incorrect is
common practice among news organizations and scientific journals alike.

It's no fun for anyone concerned, but the pursuit of truth demands it.