DRUG CZAR RAPS MEDICAL MARIJUANA

PORTLAND - Drug czar John Walters said Thursday that medical marijuana
is being used as a political ploy to support efforts to legalize
marijuana in a state where it already poses the most serious drug
abuse problem for teenagers.

Walters said that about 25 percent of the teens in the metro area who
report drug abuse problems say they are dependent on marijuana,
compared to 15 percent who report alcohol abuse.

Their parents are part of a Baby Boom generation which considers
marijuana a "soft" drug that poses only a minor problem compared to
"hard" drugs such as heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine, he said.

But marijuana remains the single biggest abuse problem in the nation,
especially for teens and young adults, Walters said.

"The greatest enemy in this area is cynicism," Walters
said.

The director of National Drug Control Policy, a job that has acquired
the nickname "drug czar," was visiting Portland on a tour of the 25
largest U.S. cities to promote state and local drug enforcement and
abuse prevention efforts.

Walters said most of the abuse problems are concentrated in those 25
cities, so the Bush administration is trying to focus funding on local
efforts to deal with those problems, including treatment and
rehabilitation programs.

But he had harsh words for medical marijuana advocates in Oregon,
accusing them of playing into the hands of legalization advocates
seeking to decriminalize all marijuana use.

"What's really going on is that sick and dying people are being used
as a political prop to legalize marijuana," Walters said.

But a spokesman for the Stormy Ray Foundation, the backers of the
Oregon medical marijuana law, said the law is aimed only at helping a
tiny number of people who are suffering from serious disease and do
not respond well with conventional treatment.

"The effort to legalize marijuana for medical purposes in the state of
Oregon has not involved pursuit of wholesale legalization," said
foundation spokesman Duane Raley. "I would say that John Walters is
uninformed, or he's promoting his own message, contrary to the facts."

Oregon is one of nine states - including Washington and California -
that allow limited use of marijuana for medical purposes under the
direction of a doctor.

Raley noted that Oregon law differs from California by restricting
marijuana cultivation to the patients who use it. The state Department
of Human Services simply processes applications and monitors marijuana
prescriptions by doctors.

"The state is not placed in the position of being a provider of
medical marijuana to the patient, and we think that's a good thing,"
Raley said.

The foundation said there were 4,473 patients registered for treatment
in Oregon as of May, with 747 applications pending.

Walters said the Bush administration is spending millions of dollars
on research to find out if any ingredients in marijuana have some
medical benefit and can be turned into prescription drugs.