MARIJUANA BRIEFING WARNS THAT POT ISN'T 'KIDDIE DOPE'

Panelists Say Use is On the Rise and Users Are Younger

The Bush administration brought a marijuana message to Utah on Wednesday
that could be called part common sense, part "Reefer Madness."

Marijuana, demonized in the famous 1936 scare film that was satirized in a
hit off-Broadway musical a couple years ago, is now widely regarded as
"kiddie dope," presenters said during a marijuana briefing in Salt Lake
City arranged by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Parents think it's no big deal if their teenagers smoke marijuana,
panelists said, and the criminal justice system doesn't take pot offenses
nearly as seriously as other high-profile drugs like cocaine and heroine.

"So the kids end up with a mixed message," said Robert Denniston, deputy
director of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. "Somehow you have
marijuana left off the hook a lot of ways in drug enforcement. At the same
time we're trying raise awareness that it's a lot worse than we thought."

Denniston doesn't apologize for wanting to add a little madness against
marijuana, and says panel discussions like Wednesday's and like those being
held nationwide are needed, in fact, because teenagers are going a little
crazy about it. According to the office:

Twice as many eighth-graders today compared to eighth-graders 10 years ago
are using it.

Age of first use among Utah kids and nationwide has dropped in that time
from 16 to 14 years old, with widespread reports of the onset dropping to
13 or as young as 10.

In Utah, out of 2,847 kids under age 18 treated for substance abuse in
2002, 56 percent were treated for marijuana.

Sixteen million Americans are illegal substance users and abusers and 60
percent of them are pot smokers.

"We would be ignoring 60 percent of the problem if we didn't talk about
this," said panelist Scott Burns, deputy director for state and local
affairs with the policy office.

"Its availability is ubiquitous," Burns said, noting that it is much
stronger than it used to be. The percentage of THC, the active drug in
marijuana, is averaging 8 to 14 percent, with levels as high as 30 percent,
he said. "It's not the old Cheech and Chong 1-to-2 percent ditch weed."

Panel member and teenager Jennifer Barnes of Taylorsville started smoking
at 13. She said she did it mainly because she didn't have enough other fun
things to do.

"And it seemed like it would be fun and it was something my friends were
doing," said Barnes, who hasn't used for more than three years.

"It was fun and my mother knew I was using and said it was just a phase,"
Barnes said, noting although she did graduate from high school, she dropped
out after getting all failing grades her sophomore year and ultimately
started using methamphetamine.

"Their folks don't often see smoking marijuana as drug use," said Lynne
Durrant, a panel member, a professor of health promotion in the University
of Utah College of Health and a youth drug abuse counselor. "And the kids
think they're infallible, immortal and infertile so they don't see what the
big deal is either."

Its influence is huge in a number of ways, particularly in the brain
chemistry of the user, said panelist Glen Hanson, associate director of the
National Institute on Drug Abuse and a pharmacology professor at the
University of Utah.

"Marijuana has been set apart from the others but it is addictive and
causes withdrawal symptoms when people stop using it," Hanson said.
"Because those symptoms aren't as serious as those caused by other drugs, a
lot of myths and misperceptions have built over time."

Just like other drugs, marijuana alters the brain's chemical makeup and
interferes with its ability to retain information, he said. It lowers
motivation and allows users to make bad decisions but at the same time
think that everything's fine when in fact their lives are falling apart,
Hanson said. "No other disease cons you into thinking everything's all right."

To use is to take chemical shortcut to the brain's pleasure center, Hanson
said. "It is not like riding a roller coaster or jumping out of an
airplane. This is adding chemicals to your brain, not inducing a normal
sensation. You are changing the way it normally functions and, in effect,
creating a mental disorder. The brain bounces and bounces and finally stops
bouncing back to normal."

Its effects on the brain function are compounded in adolescents because the
behavior center at the frontal cortex is literally not developed, he said.

But even in adults, behavior messages in the brain get altered, he said.
The urge to take the drug "is constantly nagging to get it, get it, get it
even though the person recognizes that and wants more than anything not to use.

"This is similar to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children
where they get so distracted by an obsession that they'll do it until you
grab them to stop it," Hanson said, adding that there are drugs for ADHD
that could be beneficial for people trying to change their cognitive
abilities damaged by drug abuse.

The panelists said the government needs to adopt a public awareness
campaign like it did with tobacco: Make its use viewed as abnormal rather
than cool or fun. Prevention and early intervention must also be the focus,
not punishment and incarceration by the courts, panelists said.