SPEAKER: LEGALIZING POT A BAD IDEA

BLOOMINGTON -- A former policy adviser to President Bush on drug issues
spoke in the Twin Cities on Tuesday to urge straight talk to combat the
movement to legalize marijuana.

Addressing a group of drug educators, community leaders and city officials,
Dr. Andrea Barthwell, a physician with more than 20 years experience
treating addiction, termed medical use of marijuana a "Trojan horse
designed to lead to the legalization of a dangerous drug."

Barthwell, a finalist for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate that
Illinois Republican leaders eventually gave to Alan Keyes, worries a
well-funded lobby is pushing for the medical legalization of marijuana.

Though medical use of marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, more
than 10 states allow the practice based on a doctor's recommendation.
Medicinal use of marijuana also has been debated in Illinois in recent years.

"We're very concerned," said Barthwell, the former deputy director of
demand reduction for the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, who is making an 18-city tour of Illinois.

"No city, no state is better off with more drugs available to their young
people."

Synthetic versions of marijuana have been approved to treat nausea for
chemotherapy patients and anorexia in AIDS patients, she said. But that's a
far cry from "gulping" smoke from a crude cigarette, she said.

"I doubt it was in the scheme that the Great Creator would put one plant on
Earth that could cure everything wrong with you," said Barthwell as the
audience laughed.

Barthwell fears parents of the Baby Boomer generation are seduced into
supporting marijuana's legalization based on their own youthful experiences
-- when just one in 10 people who tried marijuana went on to use other
illicit substances, she said.

They are likely unaware the potency of marijuana has risen dramatically
over the years, she said.

"What we're really worried about is that parents don't understand how big a
problem marijuana is. They are turning their heads," she said.

Equally troubling is that children are being introduced to the drug, mainly
by their peers, at ever younger ages -- sometimes as young as ages 9 and
10, she said.

"The number of young people under age 18 initiated to marijuana on a daily
basis (in the United States) would fill a large suburban high school,"
Barthwell said. "Half of the kids have tried (illicit) drugs before leaving
high school. That's unacceptable."

However, Barthwell said, children respond to drug education. As evidence,
she said the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy exceeded
Bush's goal to reduce illicit drug use by young people by 10 percent in two
years.

She said she expects the administration to reach the president's objective
of a 25 percent reduction in the first five years of his tenure.

Barthwell said she supports the Bush administration's strategy that
combines drug prevention and treatment with law enforcement and drug
interdiction.