JANE CHASTAIN IS DEAD WRONG ABOUT LEGALIZING DRUGS

In her Thursday column, fellow WND pundit, Jane Chastain, came out swinging
against growing grass-roots opposition to the drug war and increasing
support for legalization.

She kicked off the piece by targeting medical marijuana efforts as stealth
legalization and responded with evidence that cannabis is dangerous stuff.

"Marijuana is not safe," says Chastain. "Scientists have found that a
marijuana cigarette contains 50 percent more carcinogens than a tobacco
cigarette and involves twice or triple the tar and carbon monoxide."
Ratcheting up the fear factor, she writes, "Presently, 50 percent of all
regular smokers will die or become disabled as a result of smoking. Do we
really want to compound the health problems in this country by legalizing
marijuana?"

"Regular smokers" is a nebulous term, but I'm betting that we're talking
about pack-a-day people here, at least. Marijuana is, however, not used
like tobacco. A heavy pot smoker might light up as many as three or four
joints a day. The important thing to note is that, even though he holds
smoke longer in his lungs (to achieve the desired high), he's still getting
dramatically less smoke compared to a "regular" tobacco smoker.

After years of comparative testing between nonsmokers and smokers of
tobacco and pot, UCLA researchers concluded in 1997 that "in contrast to
the accelerated annual rate of decline in lung function that occurs in
regular tobacco smokers of comparable age . findings in the present study
do not support an association between even heavy, regular marijuana smoking
and the development of chronic obstructive lung disease."

In their book, "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts," Drs. Lynn Zimmer and
John P. Morgan point to a 1997 Australian study that backs the UCLA
findings. "After smoking cannabis on a daily or weekly basis for an average
of 19 years, the cannabis users had a lower prevalence of emphysema and
asthma than the general population" (my emphasis).

Beyond the lung problems, Chastain says that "In 1999, over 87,000 patients
were treated in our hospital emergency rooms because of marijuana." This
is, no offense to Jane, wrong.

The stat she's referring to is generated by the Drug Abuse Warning Network,
or DAWN, which tests ER patients for whatever substances might be in their
systems when they're admitted.

As I pointed out last year when Don Feder fumbled this very same statistic,
all the data shows is that a trace of the drug can be detected in the
patient's system when he's checked in; it doesn't give any license to
postulate about the drug's relation to the patient's condition. From the
test alone, causation becomes pure guesswork, not science.

Why?

As Chastain herself acknowledges, traces of marijuana can linger in a
person's system for a very long while; so, a patient who smoked a joint
three weeks before falling off a ladder while painting his eaves suddenly
becomes part of the scary statistic. This is why pot smokers will often
abstain for more than a month before a job interview - if there's testing
involved, they might be sober as Judge Bork and still ding positive for
cannabis.

Chastain also peddles some bad numbers about the drug war's effectiveness.

Citing National Household Survey on Drug Abuse statistics, Chastain says
that "with only 6 percent of the overall population over the age of 12
currently using drugs, it is difficult to say that drug- reduction efforts
have failed. ."

If the government called you up and said, "Do you use illegal drugs?" would
you answer honestly? That's what the National Household Survey asks of
respondents. But, as anyone with an ounce of common sense or a year of
college stat knows, you can't ask questions about illegal or unfavorable
practices and expect good answers. The National Household Survey may have
some things going for it, but reliability isn't one of them.

Conversely, the market never lies. According to the U.N. report, "Global
Illicit Drug Trends 2001," in 1987 a gram of heroin would cost you more
than $275 (using 1999 dollars). A little more than a decade later, in 1999,
the price of the same gram plummeted to less than $50. While less dramatic,
cocaine price drops are just as clear in the data - all this while the
report shows that authorities are also making ever-bigger drug busts.

Econ quiz: If prices are falling in spite of greater seizures, what does
that tell you about overall supply? Answer: It's way, way up.

Contra Chastain, it is not difficult to say drug-reduction efforts have
failed. What is difficult to say is that they have worked. With years of
heavy prosecution of the drug war, narcotics are more available now than
ever before.

Perhaps worst of all - and it's the perennial problem with conservatives on
this issue - Chastain laments that states are end- running the federal war
on drugs by passing initiatives that legalize marijuana for medical
purposes in their own jurisdictions.

"One-fifth of our states have passed ballot initiatives that are chipping
away at the nation's drug laws," she writes. "Some 24 states permit voters
to participate in the initiative process and this is where the drug
legalization battle is being waged."

Yes, naturally. That's how - and check your Constitution on this - it's
supposed to work. The federal government has no constitutional warrant for
a war on drugs. Minting money, running the post office, raising an army -
yes, yes and yes. Banning drugs - no.

Drugs are a states rights issue, not a federal issue. Conservatives who
howl and moan about big government exceeding constitutional bounds never
seem to mind when Leviathan is lunging after drugs. Despite all the Bill
Bennettesque rhetoric about saving the society, it boils down to nothing
but hypocrisy.

Americans may be overwhelmingly against outright legalization, as Chastain
says, but trying to reinforce that position with overwhelmingly misinformed
punditry is bad news.