ADVOCATES CITE CALIF. POT-USE STUDY

HELENA -- A new California study showing that teen use of marijuana
has dropped since a medical marijuana law was adopted there in 1996
proves that the permissive laws don't foster youth pot use, Montana
marijuana advocates said Friday.

The new study, released this week by the state of California, reports
that the number of ninth-graders using marijuana dropped 45 percent
over the last eight years. When California's medical marijuana law was
passed in 1996, 34.2 percent of ninth-graders reported using marijuana
within six months of the survey.

But this year, 18.8 percent of ninth-graders reported using the drug
within six months of the survey.

"What I think may be happening is young people start to see that
marijuana is for sick people and it's not something that should be
used lightly," said Paul Befumo, treasurer of the Montana Policy
Project of Montana.

At the very least, Befumo said the study shows medical marijuana laws
don't increase the rate of teen pot use.

Activists from the Marijuana Policy Project of Montana raised more
than enough signatures -- some 25,000 -- to get their medical
marijuana initiative placed on the general election ballot this
November. Montanans will be asked to vote on Initiative 148, a
proposed new law that would protect medical marijuana patients, their
doctors and their caregivers from arrest and prosecution.

But critics of the proposed law have said that medical marijuana laws
are the first step towards drug re-regulation, and called the
initiative a "law enforcement nightmare."

Roger Curtiss, an addiction counselor for Anaconda-Deer Lodge counties
and opponent of the initiative, points to data recently released by
the National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia
University that shows children and teens are three times likelier to
be in treatment for marijuana use than for alcohol use.

And they are six times likelier to be in treatment for marijuana use
than for all other illegal drugs combined, he cited.

Curtiss also said marijuana is a so-called "gateway drug," which
means people who use marijuana have less inhibitions about using
other, more serious, drugs such as methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin.

Advocates of the proposed law, however, said the new California study
buoys their causes.

"In California, which has the oldest medical marijuana law on the
books, teen use is actually dropping," Befumo said.

Bruce Mirkin, the director of the Marijuana Policy Project based in
Washington D.C. and parent organization to the Montana effort, said
the new study will "put to rest the myth that medical marijuana laws
send the wrong message to children."

"Frankly, it never made any sense that kids would think a drug is
cool because cancer or AIDS patients use it to keep from vomiting,"
Mirkin said.