U.S. REPORTS FEWER FIRST-TIME POT USERS

Fewer adolescents are first-time marijuana users than in previous years,
but those that are risk succumbing to long-term drug addiction, according
to a federal report released Wednesday.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, released the report after touring The Village, a drug treatment
center in Miami.

The study, based on the 1999 and 2000 National Household Surveys on Drug
Abuse, indicates that first-time marijuana use among the young is often a
pathway to marijuana addiction or addiction to more potent drugs such as
cocaine or heroin, Walters said.

"Marijuana is not the soft drug," Walters said.

He said government, community agencies and parents must marshal their
powers to prevent and treat marijuana abuse.

According to the study, 62 percent of cocaine users age 26 or older were
first-time marijuana users by the age of 14.

But advocates of legalizing marijuana call Walters' gateway theory one of
the oldest myths in drug policy.

According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws,
based in Washington, D.C., only one out of every 104 first-time marijuana
users ever uses heroin or cocaine.

The research is based on numbers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

"The theory that once you use marijuana your brain craves harder drugs is
the perpetuation of a long tortured myth," said Allen St. Pierre, the
group's executive director.

St. Pierre said Walters was manipulating federally funded research to
preserve the status quo.

"If you want good drug war coverage," St. Pierre added, "you go to Miami."

But Matthew Gissen, founder of The Village, said all of the adults at his
center grappling with drug addiction first used marijuana.

"At one time or another everyone we've treated here has used marijuana and
progressed onto other drugs that eventually brought them to our doorstep,"
Gissen said.