A DIFFERENT VIEW

Stephen Bogan gave a talk at The Dalles High School called "The Truth
About Marijuana." He started out by saying that marijuana is a big
problem today because " adults may have mixed feelings about marijuana
due to their own use and knowledge of the drug." In other words, when
people have knowledge, the drug war has a problem.

To solve this problem, Mr. Bogan set out to convince us that we know
nothing. He said that marijuana has recently gotten so much more
powerful, that people who have smoked in the past can't even imagine
what it's like. This super Frankenstein weed is causing people to have
psychotic episodes so they end up in the emergency room and have to go
to treatment !

None of this is true. His whole talk was a demonstration of how to lie
with statistics. These letters are limited to 400 words, so I can't
give you the details here, but I have put the facts on the web. You
can check out the details at www.gammatest.com/Bogus.htm

Mr. Bogan's goal was to make parents doubt their own experience and
judgment. He wants parents to tell their kids about the new Frankenstein
marijuana, and how anyone that uses it will end up in the emergency room.
Then the kids will go to a party, see someone smoking, and discover the
lie. Guess what - after this they are more likely to smoke. And when they
are offered the next drug, they are less likely to talk to adults. By
damaging the bond of trust between parents and children, Mr. Bogan does his
job, which is to perpetuate the drug war. His message to parents was, "
Talk to your kids, and when you do, tell them government lies." He told us
that there had recently been a big increase in marijuana use at the middle
school level. He's right - when we only had " drug education " in the high
schools, we only had a drug problem in the high schools. About ten years
ago they started doing " drug education " in middle schools - now we have a
drug problem in middle school. Maybe we should at least experiment with
telling kids the truth.

Wayne Haythorn Mosier