FEDERAL DRUG CZAR RIPS POT PETITION

The nation's drug czar was in town Thursday to compliment Nevada's
prescription drug database, which tracks about 3 million prescriptions
to determine when people could be abusing controlled drugs.

But John Walters also took the opportunity to speak out vehemently
against a new initiative in Nevada that would allow some legal
marijuana use among adults, calling it "reprehensible" and saying the
idea would "add to the suffering" of Americans addicted to the drug.

"It's foolhardy to suggest that the use of marijuana should be more
accepted, more legitimate," he told a few dozen people at the Women
and Children's campus of WestCare, a rehabilitation center.

"If you normalize the use of dangerous and addictive substances, you
get more addiction, more abuse and more crime," he said.

The Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana is circulating a
petition that would allow adults to buy up to one ounce of marijuana
from controlled shops.

Proponents say it would take drug dealers off the streets, meaning
teenagers would have less access to the drug.

"Walters represents what is wrong with our current system," Jennifer
Knight, communications director for the Committee to Regulate and
Control Marijuana, said in a statement released Thursday.

"He keeps supporting current marijuana laws that don't work," Knight
said. "Now he is coming here to Nevada to tell us how to vote on a
state initiative while ignoring his own report that shows that 67
percent of teens in Nevada have tried marijuana. Where is his solution?"

Walters argued in his speech that abuse of marijuana and prescription
drugs are two dangerous elements in society that need to be treated
both on the supply and demand side.

"Prescription pharmaceuticals are second only to marijuana in the role
they play in the drug problem," he said.

He said 153 deaths in Las Vegas in 2001 were related to abuse of
narcotic pain killers, up from 63 in 1997.

The problem is nationwide. An estimated 6.2 million Americans abused
prescription drugs in 2001, compared to 1.6 million in 2000, he said.

And almost 14 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds say they have abused
prescription drugs at least once in their life, he said.

"I don't know a family that hasn't suffered from it either directly or
indirectly," he said.

The Bush administration wants to increase education about drug abuse,
provide better treatment to people addicted to drugs, crack down on
illegitimate online prescription drug companies and encourage more
prescription tracking programs such as Nevada's, Walters said.

Law enforcement agencies can crack down without punishing doctors who
write legitimate prescriptions or infringing on patient
confidentiality, he said.

Keith Macdonald, the executive secretary of the state Board of
Pharmacy, said it would be a bad idea to try to put all prescription
drug abusers in prison, saying it would "double" the prison population.

"We don't think that would be good public policy," he said.

Also on Thursday, Walters said he is working with Rep. Jon Porter,
R-Nev., on his bill to require states to educate people on the dangers
of driving under the influence of drugs and punish states that don't
set minimum penalties for driving while drugged.

Walters said the White House has allocated money to train law
enforcement officers to better test people pulled over on the road for
drug intoxication. But he said there needs to be more talk about
driving while high, just as a few decades ago there was publicity
about the effects of driving drunk.

"The kind of culture change you see in regard to driving while
drinking is dramatic," he said.