DEPUTY DRUG CZAR OPPOSES LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

Scott Burns, a top federal official in the war on drugs, visited
Montana this week intending to discuss methamphetamine. But Burns
found himself talking instead mostly about marijuana, as Montanans
prepare to vote Nov. 2 on a ballot measure that would allow use of the
illegal plant for medical purposes.

"I cannot tell anyone how to vote," Burns said - but his
anti-marijuana message was clear.

"This is a con by people who want people to legalize marijuana in this
state," Burns said. "They always start with the medical marijuana
issue."

Burns, who is deputy director for state and local affairs in the
Office of National Drug Control Policy, held a news conference
Thursday in Billings at Rimrock Foundation, a private, nonprofit
treatment center. He also met with local law enforcement and treatment
center officials. Burns, formerly the county attorney of Iron County,
Utah, made similar visits earlier this week to Helena and Missoula.

Initiative 148 would legalize the cultivation and possession of
marijuana for medical use in Montana. Patients could use marijuana
under medical supervision to relieve symptoms of cancer, glaucoma,
HIV/AIDS and other conditions defined by the state.

Proponents, Burns said, typically use the example of someone suffering
from a disease and say that smoking marijuana offers relief.

"It's not about that," Burns said. "It's about our children."

There are alternatives besides marijuana for sick people, he said. For
example, Marinol, which is a pill containing THC, an active component
of marijuana, is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and
may be prescribed by doctors.

The FDA, the American Medical Association and other medical groups
have said that "smoking this weed is not a medicine," Burns said.

Missoula resident Paul Befumo, a spokesperson for I-148, said in a
telephone interview Thursday that he didn't think Burns had read the
initiative.

"It's really really narrowly confined," Befumo said. The measure
covers only people with the diseases specified and closes anything
that could be viewed as a loophole, he said.

Befumo also said Marinol has only one component of the many active
ingredients in marijuana. "That's why when Marinol doesn't work,
medical marijuana does," he said.

Befumo said studies and research papers support the therapeutic
potential of marijuana.

Backers of the measure point to the results of a California study that
showed marijuana use by high school students declined after voters
there approved the medial use of marijuana in 1996.

Befumo stated earlier that the study did not indicate that the medical
marijuana law was the cause of the reduced marijuana use but that "the
law did not cause an increase in use as predicted by opponents."

Burns said marijuana is considered by treatment experts to be a
progressive drug, which leads to use of other illegal drugs. More
youths under age 18 are in treatment for marijuana dependency than for
any other drug, he said.

"The marijuana problem is a national problem," Burns said. Of the
approximately 19.5 million people using illegal drugs, 77 percent use
marijuana or marijuana and another drug, he said.

Marijuana used to be a rite-of-passage drug for youths in their late
teens. "It's now a middle school rite-of-passage drug" with children
aged 12 or 13 and even younger, he said.

"That's unacceptable. We don't need more marijuana available to our
children," he said.

Burns also said marijuana use still is illegal under federal law.
There is "no safe harbor" for marijuana users even if voters approve
it for medical use, he said.

Information from the Office of National Drug Control Policy shows that
marijuana use among eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders has been declining
in recent years.

"We are pushing back," Burns said. He credited the declining use in
part to parents getting involved.

The least deserving of credit for declining use are those who support
medical use of marijuana, Burns said.

And while marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug,
methamphetamine, used by an estimated 1.5 million of the county's 19.5
million drug users, is a serious problem across the country, he said.
Meth is highly addictive and can be manufactured in clandestine labs
using commonly available ingredients, like pseudoephedrine, which is
found in over-the-counter cold medication.

"This is a bad drug," Burns said.

On a national level, Burns said, the United States has clamped down on
large shipments of pseudoephedrine from Canada and is helping local
communities through federal funding of law enforcement programs like
the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. Yellowstone County and four
other Montana counties are in the Rocky Mountain HIDTA.

Law enforcement, prevention, education and treatment are needed to
fight meth use, he said. Communities have to become involved and
people have to intervene, he said.

People are so polite in this society they are reluctant to intervene.

"If you want to save someone's life, step in and intervene," he said.