HIGH TIMES FOR THE UNREGULATED PURVEYORS OF POT

Look at the numbers for teenage cigarette smoking. Now look at the
numbers for teenage marijuana use. Folks, there's a lesson here.

Last week, President Bush touted new survey results showing a modest
drop in teen use of marijuana and other drugs, but he failed to
mention the drug for which prevention efforts have had the most
spectacular success -- tobacco. If he had, he might have had to make
some troubling comparisons.

Bush noted that drug use has declined from its recent peak in 1996,
but sidestepped the longer-term picture that doesn't look nearly so rosy.

If you go back 15 years, to 1992, drug use is up almost across the
board. For example, in 1992, 3.7 percent of eighth-graders were
current marijuana users, compared with 5.7 percent in 2007. For
12th-graders, the figures were 11.9 percent and 18.8 percent, respectively.

This contrasts sharply with the figures on adolescent cigarette use.
Here, too, there was a bit of a rise in the mid-1990s, but overall,
the trend is much more encouraging.

While marijuana use is higher among all age groups than it was 15
years ago, cigarette smoking has dropped remarkably. Among
12th-graders, current cigarette smoking has dropped from 27.8 percent
in 1992 to 21.6 percent this year. For eighth-graders, the drop is
even more dramatic, from 15.5 percent down to 7.1 percent.

And here's a figure that may be shocking: Among 10th-graders, 14.0
percent currently smoke cigarettes, while 14.2 percent smoke
marijuana. That's right: Slightly more 10th-graders now smoke
marijuana than cigarettes.

The sharp drop in cigarette use is not attributable to changing
attitudes about smoking. Teen disapproval of smoking is only
marginally higher than it was in 1992, for all age groups.

So what accounts for the drop in tobacco use? The regulation of
cigarette sales and marketing. As part of the Master Settlement
Agreement with 46 states, cigarette companies agreed to stop outdoor
advertising and to banish kid-friendly characters such as Joe Camel.
Even more important, we as a nation got serious about reducing
tobacco sales to kids.

In 1992, Congress passed the Synar amendment, requiring states to
enact and enforce laws prohibiting sale of tobacco products to youth
under the age of 18, and setting up unannounced inspections of retail
outlets. The program has worked spectacularly well. In 1997,
inspectors found that more than 40 percent of retailers were
violating the ban on cigarette sales to kids. By 2006, the violation
rate had dropped to just 10.9 percent, and it's still dropping.

So what does this have to do with marijuana?

Simply put, we have leverage over tobacco sellers that we don't have
with marijuana dealers. Because tobacco retailers and producers are
licensed and regulated, we have some control over them. If they want
to keep their lucrative businesses, cigarette merchants have a strong
incentive to follow the laws -- even laws they don't like.

Consider this: As part of their reaction to the Synar amendment,
tobacco retailers adopted a "voluntary" program called "We Card."
Today, virtually any store that sells cigarettes posts a large,
brightly colored sign saying, "Under 18, No Tobacco. We Card."

Have you ever seen a marijuana dealer with a "We Card" sign?

If we want to control teen access to marijuana, it's time to learn a
lesson from our success with tobacco. Contrary to the mythology put
out by drug czar John Walters and his ilk, the complete prohibition
of marijuana for adults not only doesn't help to keep marijuana away
from kids, but it actually hampers such efforts.

Regulation works. Prohibition deprives authorities of the best tools
available to successfully regulate sales and marketing. Prohibition
has handed the entire, annual $113 billion marijuana industry over to
unregulated criminals, with entirely predictable consequences.

If we really want to control marijuana and keep it away from our
kids, it's time to bring it within the law and regulate it as we do tobacco.