MEDICAL MARIJUANA? LET'S NOT GO THERE

Recently Michael Neibauer, a staff writer for Examiner.com, provided
an update regarding the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee that
has lifted a long-standing budget rider banning the District of
Columbia government from spending any money to decriminalize marijuana.

The Financial Services Panel, which has oversight of Washington, has
removed from the 2010 budget the 11-year-old language that outlaws the
district's use of federal or local funds to legalize marijuana or
reduce penalties for its possession or distribution.

Neibauer reported on comments from Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the
Marijuana Policy Project. Mirken had been working with Congress for
several years to remove the language regarding outlawing the use of
federal, or local funds to legalize pot and to reduce penalties.
Mirken has great hopes that it will happen this year.

There have been numerous attempts in the past 10 years to legalize and
decriminalize marijuana. California is leading the way. A person can
now walk into a specialty shop and purchase marijuana for medicinal
purposes. Medicinal purposes can mean that the prescription is for a
litany of ailments that range from anxiety to zoophobia (intense fear
of animals).

Just as there are doctors who prescribe several hundred oxycodone
pills for their patients' back pain, there are physicians who believe
that marijuana is more effective and less damaging to patients than
prescriptions in pill form.

Niebauer provides the balanced perspective from the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration. The DEA is firmly against the legalization
of marijuana, as it considers lifting spending restrictions and
decriminalizing marijuana will encourage a greater tolerance for drug
use. Smoked marijuana "has not withstood the rigors of science -- it is
not medicine and it is not safe," the DEA argues.

On the other hand, a 2004 Dutch study compared marijuana use in the
Netherlands and the United States. Researchers found no evidence that
decriminalization of marijuana would lead to increased drug use. The
results suggested that drug policies may have less impact on marijuana
use than is currently thought. The Netherlands decriminalized
marijuana use in 1976, and it is available for purchase in small
quantities by adults in licensed coffee shops.

As Americans, do we want our children to have access to marijuana as
easily as they have access to alcohol? Collier County's youth start
drinking alcoholic beverages in middle school and 44 percent of our
high-school students have had alcohol in the past 30 days. Seventeen
percent of Collier County's high-school students report that they have
smoked marijuana in the past 30 days. Both statistics are alarming and
make you wonder if marijuana were as easily accessible as alcohol,
would more youth smoke marijuana and in some cases abuse both at the
same rate.

Additionally, studies regarding the effects of alcohol on adults and
youth have been conducted for at least three centuries. We do not have
the same breadth of research for marijuana. It was only in 2008 that
the National Institute on Drug Abuse began the first comprehensive
study of marijuana addiction by examining the neurobiological effects
of marijuana use. We do know that marijuana, like any other drug, can
become the focal point of a person's life -- especially in an
adolescent's life.

As executive director of Drug Free Collier, a community coalition
dedicated to the prevention of juvenile substance abuse, I urge
Collier County residents to voice their opposition to the legalization
of marijuana by contacting their legislators. Collier County has over
45,000 students who deserve to live in a drug-free and safe
environment. You can find a list of your local government
representatives by logging on to our Web site, on www.Drugfree
Collier.org and selecting the tab for "community." If you wish to
learn more about Drug Free Collier, please contact me at (239) 377-0535.