GOVERNMENT SPREADS LIES ABOUT MARIJUANA

It is disturbing to see drug czar John Walters continuing to spread
misinformation about marijuana, and even more disturbing to see newspapers
like The Times-News repeating such misstatements uncritically.

For example, Walters sounds the alarm at the number of teens and adults
entering rehab for marijuana, suggesting that this is proof that the drug
is dangerously addictive. But Walters leaves out a critical fact: The
government's own figures show that the majority of people entering
marijuana treatment are in treatment because they were forced into it after
being arrested. To use these arrest-generated treatment figures as "proof"
of marijuana's dangers is Orwellian doublespeak, and Walters knows it.
Objective examinations, like the one done by the Institute of Medicine in
1999, have consistently found marijuana to be markedly less addictive than
alcohol or cigarettes.

Surgeon General Carmona's claim that marijuana changes the brain in ways
similar to heroin and cocaine has been refuted so often it's hard to
believe he can say it with a straight face. As University of Southern
California psychology professor Mitchell Earleywine, author of
"Understanding Marijuana" (Oxford University Press, 2002) wrote recently,
"Marijuana's effects barely resemble those of alcohol and cocaine and have
next to nothing to do with heroin ... Only one study has shown any changes
in brain structure associated with early marijuana use, and it's unclear
whether the marijuana actually caused those changes."

We agree with Walters and Carmona that teens should be discouraged from
using marijuana or other intoxicants. But -- as Carmona's own figures about
usage demonstrate -- marijuana prohibition has utterly failed to achieve
that result. Indeed, in a recent Columbia University study, teens rated
marijuana as being easier to purchase than cigarettes or beer.

Rather than spreading urban legends, our government drug warriors need to
take an honest look at the data and consider that a different policy might
do a better job of protecting both teens and adults.

BRUCE MIRKEN, Washington, D.C.

(Editor's note: Bruce Mirken is the director of communications for the
Marijuana Policy Project.)