MEDICINAL POT ALLEVIATES SUFFERING (1 OF 3)

Re "Parents Warned on Pot's Toll," Sept. 18: The core message of drug czar
John Walters is certainly worth heeding, but he risks losing credibility by
deliberately misrepresenting government data. According to the drug czar,
more teens are in treatment for marijuana than alcohol and all illegal
drugs combined. Record numbers of Americans arrested for marijuana
possession have been forced into treatment by the criminal justice system.
The resulting distortion of treatment statistics is then used by the drug
czar to make the claim that marijuana is "addictive."

There is a big difference between voluntary treatment and government
coercion. Zero-tolerance drug laws do not distinguish between occasional
use and chronic abuse. The coercion of Americans who prefer marijuana to
martinis into taxpayer-funded treatment centers says a lot about government
priorities but absolutely nothing about the relative harms of marijuana.

Robert Sharpe
Program Officer
Drug Policy Alliance
Washington