MARIJUANA IS FAR FROM HARMLESS

'Reefer Madness' is silly, but the real effects of this supposedly mellow
herb are clearly pernicious, says John P. Walters

In December, the University of Michigan released its annual survey,
"Monitoring the Future," which measures drug use among American youth. Very
little had changed from the previous year's report; most indicators were
flat. The report generated little in the way of public comment.

Yet what it brought to light was deeply disturbing. Drug use among our
nation's teens remains stable, but at near-record levels, with some 49
percent of high school seniors experimenting with marijuana at least once
prior to graduation -- and 22 percent smoking marijuana at least once a month.

After years of giggling at quaintly outdated marijuana scare stories like
the 1936 movie "Reefer Madness," we've become almost conditioned to think
that any warnings about the true dangers of marijuana are overblown. But
marijuana is far from "harmless" -- it is pernicious. Parents are often
unaware that today's marijuana is different from that of a generation ago,
with potency levels 10 to 20 times stronger than the marijuana with which
they were familiar.

Marijuana directly affects the brain. Researchers have learned that it
impairs the ability of young people to concentrate and retain information
during their peak learning years, and when their brains are still
developing. The THC in marijuana attaches itself to receptors in the
hippocampal region of the brain, weakening short-term memory and
interfering with the mechanisms that form long-term memory. Do our
struggling schools really need another obstacle to student achievement?

Marijuana smoking can hurt more than just grades. According to the
Department of Health and Human Services, the number of marijuana-related
emergency room admissions is growing. Each year, for example, marijuana use
is linked to tens of thousands of serious traffic accidents.

Research has now established that marijuana is in fact addictive. Of the
4.3 million Americans who meet the diagnostic criteria for needing drug
treatment (criteria developed by the American Psychiatric Association, not
police departments or prosecutors) two-thirds are dependent on marijuana,
according to HHS. These are not occasional pot smokers but people with real
problems directly traceable to their marijuana use, including significant
health and emotional problems and difficulty in cutting down on use. Sixty
percent of teens in drug treatment have a primary marijuana diagnosis.

Despite this and other strong scientific evidence of marijuana's
destructive effects, a cynical campaign is underway to proclaim the virtues
of "medical" marijuana. By now most Americans realize that the push to
"normalize" marijuana for medical use is part of the drug legalization
agenda. Its chief funders, George Soros, John Sperling and Peter Lewis,
have spent millions to help pay for referendums and ballot initiatives in
states from Alaska to Maine.

Why? Is the U.S. health care system -- the most sophisticated in the world
- -- hobbled by a lack of smoked medicines? The University of California's
Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research is currently conducting scientific
studies to determine the efficacy of marijuana in treating various
ailments. Until that research is concluded, however, most of what the
public hears from marijuana activists is little more than a compilation of
anecdotes. Many questions remain unanswered, but the science is clear on a
few things. Example: Marijuana contains hundreds of carcinogens.

Moreover, anti-smoking efforts aimed at youth have been remarkably
effective by building on a campaign to erode the social acceptability of
tobacco. Should we undermine those efforts by promoting smoked marijuana as
though it were a medicine?

While medical marijuana initiatives are based on pseudoscience, their
effects on the criminal justice system are anything but imaginary. By
opening up legal loopholes, existing medical marijuana laws have caused
police and prosecutors to stay away from marijuana prosecutions.

Giving marijuana dealers a free pass is a terrible idea. In fact, thanks in
part to reporting in The Washington Post, District of Columbia residents
are aware that marijuana dealers are dangerous criminals. The recent
life-without-parole convictions of leaders of Washington's K Street Crew
are only the latest evidence of this.

As reported in The Post, the K Street Crew was a vicious group of marijuana
dealers whose decade-long reign of terror was brought to an end only this
year after a massive prosecution effort by Michael Volkov, chief gang
prosecutor for the U.S. attorney's office. The K Street Crew is credited
with at least 17 murders, including systematic killings of potential witnesses.

Says prosecutor Volkov: "The experience in D.C. shows that marijuana
dealers are no less violent than cocaine and heroin traffickers. They have
just as much money to lose, just as much turf to lose, and just as many
reasons to kill as any drug trafficker."

Skeptics will charge that this kind of violence is just one more reason to
legalize marijuana. A review of the nation's history with drug use suggests
otherwise: When marijuana is inexpensive, as it would be if legal, use
soars -- bad news for the schools, streets and emergency rooms.