SHOULD ILLEGAL DRUGS BE DECRIMINALIZED?

Scare Tactics Foster Drug Abuse

To hear it from drug czar John Walters, marijuana is more dangerous because
it's allegedly more potent. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Both weak
and strong marijuana will yield the desired result; only the potent
marijuana requires significantly less smoke inhalation, so it's actually
less harmful.

Misleading claims serve to scare baby boomer parents into supporting a
punitive drug war, but they can cause teen-agers to question the
credibility of anti-drug messages. Like any drug, marijuana can be harmful
if abused, but that's not the point. Teen-agers who realize they've been
lied to about marijuana often mistakenly assume that harder drugs like
heroin are relatively harmless. This is a recipe for disaster.

Anti-drug messages must be reality-based or they may backfire when
teen-agers are inevitably exposed to drug use among their peers. Walters
might want to consider that preventing drug abuse, legal or otherwise, is
more important than drumming up political support for the war on drugs.

Robert Sharpe, Program Officer, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, D.C.