MERITS OF MARIJUANA FOCUS OF PANEL DEBATE

Students and professionals debated the consequences and legal ramifications
of marijuana use and marijuana legalization at "Pot or Not," a panel
discussion held Tuesday at Briscoe Residence Center.

Briscoe residential assistants set up the discussion to fulfill a
requirement to organize a program that involves the entire residence
center, said Megan Kilbourn, a Briscoe resident assistant. They decided the
issue of marijuana legalization would be important not only to residents
but the entire campus and that the discussion would provide an interactive
educational atmosphere.

"It's a place to find out issues and have a good time debating about if it
would be legal and how that should work," Kilbourn said. "Or if it
shouldn't be legal, what are the reasons?"

Kilbourn herself went into the discussion undecided on her stance.

"I grew up in a liberal community, but my dad is a neuroscientist who does
research on the chemical makeup of the brain," she said. "So I'm not sure
how I feel about having something that changes the way your brain works
become legal."

Four speakers provided views and expertise from their fields of drug
prevention, law enforcement, medicine and legalization education. The
former two took an anti-legalization stance, and the latter two took a pro
stance.

Mark Pogue, deputy director of the Indiana Preventive Research Center, said
he teaches a class on drug use and doesn't try to state unfounded facts.

"I'm very much interested in prevention," Pogue said. "I think there are
aspects of both sides of the issue that have merits."

Pogue explained his caution as a result of a family experience with
marijuana. His older brother Noel was a heavy user.

"Almost a year ago today he took his life," said Pogue. "I think marijuana
might have played a contributing role in the death of my brother. That
wasn't the whole and only reason my brother took his life, but I have some
very strong feelings."

Detective Greg McClure of the IU Police Department said he too had some
friends that aren't around anymore because of drugs, yet he leaves the
decision of whether to use pot to the individual.

"My main thing: I don't care if marijuana is legalized or if everyone
smokes themselves into a stupor," McClure said. "My job is to enforce laws
politicians make."

Clark Britain, a physician and educator at the IU School of Medicine,
described the medicinal benefits of marijuana that he has personally dealt
with with a patient at an indigent rural clinic. Because of a medical
condition, she had refractory nausea and vomiting throughout her pregnancy.

"I prescribed defensive, very useful drugs for this nausea and vomiting
that I knew would help her a great deal, but apparently they didn't help,"
said Britain. "The only thing that did was smoking marijuana, which gave
her relief, but she didn't tell me about it."

Britain referred to a study of the prenatal use of marijuana that found
that over ten years, some children developed slight attention problems.

Britain also said the War on Drugs is wrong-headed.

"One hundred years ago the addiction rate was .28 percent per one hundred
thousand population," he said. "All drugs were legal. A fifteen-year-old
could go to the pharmacy and get cocaine. There was no drug problem. Today
after 85 years of a very vigorous prosecution of the War on Drugs, jails
are full and the addiction rate is over one percent."

Pogue countered with a study that showed that as the perceived danger of
using a particular drug, including the possibility of arrest, increased,
the use of the drug decreased.

Mike Truelove, who founded the Citizen's Alliance for the Legalization of
Marijuana in 1997, said damage has been done at IU because marijuana is
illegal.

"Are the laws causing more trouble than the actual use of marijuana?" he
asked. "When students are arrested, they face a disruption of education. So
many benefits are being discovered, and I don't see many harms in the use
of marijuana."

Truelove also had a personal experience similar to that of Pogue and McClure.

"I had a friend under such legal attack from the establishment that he took
his life," Truelove said. "We really need to focus on the law. I'm for
industrial use, medicinal use and recreational use. It's better than
putting it in the black market where you have associations with other drugs."

As an audience of around 30 students fired off questions, the panelists
often quoted studies using evidence found in one study to combat the
evidence found in another.

Truelove quoted a study that showed when marijuana was given to rats, the
rats had less occurrence of tumor growth.

Pogue countered with a study that claimed THC promotes tumor growth and
lowers resistance to bacterial and viral infections.

"Personally, on chemo, I'd rather get rid of my tumor and remain nauseous,"
said Pogue.