HEALTH OVERLOOKED FACTOR IN MARIJUANA MEASURE

Los Angeles - In 1969, Carol McDonald was 28, married and the mother
of two young children, out for an evening of fun with a couple who
smoked marijuana. By the end of the evening she was on her way to a
19-year addiction.

"Within a few months, I was smoking every day," said McDonald, a
retired bookkeeper, now 69. "I had to smoke before going to work. If
something was upsetting, I smoked over it. If there was a
celebration, I smoked over it."

People like McDonald may be largely overlooked in the statewide
debate over legalizing marijuana. The drug has a benign reputation:
Many baby boomers smoked and emerged unscathed, and medical marijuana
facilities with their friendly images of seven-fingered leaves have
popped up all over Los Angeles.

That might be why Proposition 19, the Nov. 2 ballot measure that
would legalize marijuana and regulate it similarly to alcohol, has
generated scores of reports and debates regarding the potential
effect on business revenue, tax dollars and law enforcement but scant
discussion on the potential fallout on people's health.

In California, addiction counselors are split on the legalization
issue largely because of their long-standing support of treatment
over jail and legal penalties for marijuana addicts. Yet nationally,
public health experts mostly are against legalization. They say it
will increase the number of people who become addicted to the drug,
contribute to more automobile accidents and erode school performance.

"It's bizarre to me when people say, 'Make marijuana legal, and we'll
have no problems with it,'" said Keith Humphreys, a professor of
psychiatry and behavioral science at Stanford University who recently
served as a White House senior adviser on the nation's drug control policy.

Because the science of marijuana's health effects is in many cases
unclear, experts on each side of the legalization debate can point to
scientific studies that support their own position.

They do agree that marijuana should be avoided during pregnancy and
that it is harmful for people with mental illness or who are at risk
for developing a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia.

And they agree, too, on some basic statistics: Marijuana is addictive
for about 9 percent of adults who use it (compared with about 15
percent who use alcohol and 15 percent who use cocaine), according to
federal data. Because it is the most widely used illegal substance in
the country, marijuana dependence is more common than addiction to
either cocaine or heroin despite its lower addiction potential.

"We generally think the problems with marijuana aren't as serious as
the problems you tend to see with cocaine or heroin," said Alan J.
Budney, a leading researcher on marijuana at the Center for Addiction
Research at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences who
opposes legalization. "But they are still pretty substantial."

The science of marijuana becomes murky when one steps beyond
addiction statistics to examine effects on health.

A series of studies conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration published in 1998 found that the effects of marijuana
alone on driving were small or moderate, but severe when combined
with alcohol. But other studies show little impairment from a moderate dose.

The data on lung damage and smoking-related cancers are similarly
mixed, in part because a large portion of heavy marijuana users also
smoke tobacco, which muddies the picture of marijuana's effects.

Several studies have also dismissed the fear that marijuana is a
"gateway" drug that will lead children and adolescents to experiment
with harder illicit drugs - although numerous studies suggest that
the earlier in life someone uses marijuana, the riskier it becomes.

Among 14- and 15-year-olds who start to smoke, 17 percent will be
dependent within two years, said Dr. Tim Cermak, an addiction
psychiatrist and president of the California Society of Addiction Medicine.

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