DRUG-CONTROL ADS PROMOTE DANGER

This spring, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
unleashed a new round of anti-marijuana newspaper ads aimed at parents. One
of the most egregiously deceptive ads was headlined "Introducing a Really
High-Tar Cigarette," and claimed, "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 kids smoked a little pot
than get hooked on cigarettes. Wrong, and wrong again ... one joint can
deliver four times as much cancer-causing tar as one cigarette" [emphasis
added].

Fact is, however, scientific studies -- many summarized in a 1999 Institute
of Medicine report commissioned by ONDCP itself -- have never shown that
marijuana causes lung cancer or the other cancers caused by cigarettes.
It's appalling that the White House is actually telling parents not to
worry about a drug -- tobacco -- that has been proven deadly and highly
addictive.

While kids should be discouraged from smoking anything, the data are
crystal clear that tobacco is far more carcinogenic and far more addictive
than marijuana. Prohibitionists' constant concern that reforming marijuana
laws will somehow send the wrong message to children is particularly
ironic, because ONDCP's ads tell children, in effect, that if they've
already tried marijuana, cigarettes are no big deal because they have
one-quarter the tar.

That's a message that could literally kill. For more information go to
www.mpp.org.

- -- Bob Niewoehner

Marshall