Is the Nation's Marijuana Policy Misguided?

*Is the Nation's Marijuana Policy Misguided?***
*By Russell Goldman *
Source: ABC News

USA -- Since the Marijuana Tax Act - the first anti-marijuana federal
law - was signed by President Roosevelt 70 years ago Thursday, the
debate over the drug's effects, dangers and criminalization has raged
unabated.

The Bush administration has made marijuana its prime target in the war
on drugs, spending billions of dollars on education campaigns and law
enforcement activities. Critics, however, contend that the war on pot
has allowed for the proliferation of other more dangerous drugs like
methamphetamine and crack cocaine.

Unsurprisingly, much of the criticism of federal law comes from
pro-marijuana lobbying groups that believe the drug should, in some
instances, be decriminalized.

More surprisingly, however, is criticism from politicians and law
enforcement officers, in areas ravaged by meth use, who say the
government's war on marijuana is being fought at the expense of the
battle to rid the country of methamphetamine.

As security at the nation's borders tightens, more marijuana busts are
related to domestic growing operations - illicit businesses that are
increasingly hidden in suburban homes, called "grow houses."

A spate of large-scale busts in recent months from South Carolina to
California has allowed John Walters, director of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy, to reiterate the government's position that
marijuana is extremely dangerous, and a gateway to more deadly drugs.

There were 322,438 kilos of marijuana seized in federal operations in
2006, up from 283,344 the year before.

"Marijuana is the only illegal drug where we have to try and explain to
people that what we've found, and what the statistics [show], and what
the consequences are, are worse than they think,'' Walters told ABC
News. "Nobody thinks [methamphetamine] is a soft drug. Nobody talks
about heroin or cocaine as 'OK, we can just tolerate it.'''

"We understand the disease of addiction in a way nobody understood it in
the 1970s, the 1960s, even the early 1980s," Walters said. "Science,
investments in brain imaging, and millions and millions of dollars of
study have helped us understand what happens here."

It is just those sorts of statements that rile marijuana advocates. The
effects of marijuana pale in comparison to the dangers of other drugs,
and federal policy, they say, should reflect those dangers.

"The folks running drug policy in the Bush White House are pretty
clearly obsessed with marijuana," Bruce Mirken, director of
communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, told ABC News.
"Officials from ONDCP have more than once said it is the most dangerous
substance. It is, however, vastly less dangerous than drugs like
methamphetamine."

"Marijuana is mildly toxic compared to most recreational and
pharmaceutical drugs, and yet there has been this all out demonization,"
Mirken said.

* Senator and Police Want Action on Meth *

Perhaps the most surprising critic of the Bush administration's
marijuana policy is Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Grassley is chairman of
the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control. In 2005, he sent a
letter to the White House, urging the Bush administration to spend
resources to combat meth rather than marijuana.

"While we agree that any drug use is harmful to users and those around
them, the problems associated with marijuana are not comparable to
methamphetamine in terms of cost to society," Grassley wrote to drug
czar Walters.

"We know that different drugs have different rates of use. Marijuana is
a much more popular drug in terms of the number of people who use it,"
Grassley wrote. "However, methamphetamine causes much more destruction
in a much shorter period of time than marijuana.

"We believe that reducing drug use is not just about reducing the number
of users of a drug, but reducing the overall harm to society caused by
the drug."

Iowa has been one of the states hardest hit by methamphetamine. Local
police say more money and manpower is needed to fight meth and not
marijuana. "Marijuana is old news," said Bob Doran, a spokesman for the
Iowa Association of Chiefs of Police and Peace Officers.

Doran dismissed the ONDCP claim that marijuana is a gateway drug that
leads people to harder, more deadly drugs.

"The longtime argument has been that marijuana is the first step into
drug use, but I think that argument has gone by the wayside," Doran
said. "We're finding many kids skipping the pot and going straight to
meth."

Doran added that meth was particularly dangerous, not only because of
the effects on the user, but from the dangers created in its production.
"With marijuana, we're concerned with sale and use, not the manufacture.
The toxic effects are nowhere near those of meth production."

The federal government, for its part, maintains that fighting meth and
fighting marijuana are two separate battles. The money and resources
used to combat marijuana is different from those used to fight meth.

"All the criticism of policy winds up being a grab bag of ideas and
conspiracies," said Tom Riley, an ONDCP spokesman.

"It is an interesting public policy discussion, but what does that
discussion have to do with local law enforcement?" asked Riley. "The
money used to go after heroin in Afghanistan isn't the same money used
to go after marijuana, and the money for marijuana isn't the same money
needed to go after meth."

*Is Pot Really a Gateway Drug?*

The ONDCP, which sets the nation's drug policies, is literally an office
in the White House. Some experts have raised questions about the
impartiality of an office so linked to the politics of the executive
branch.

"The ONDCP is not a neutral office that rationally evaluates the drug
war," said Matthew Robinson, a criminal justice professor at Apalachian
State University, and co-author of "Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War
Statistics: A Critical Analysis of Claims Made By the Office of National
Drug Control Policy."

After examining the office's annual national drug control policy report
for seven years, Robinson said he "found a consistent effort to
manipulate data to make marijuana seem more dangerous than it really is."

Robinson added that when crunching ONDCP's numbers, he found
inconsistencies, claims that did not jibe with their own data,
manipulation of statistics, reliance on anecdotal evidence, and a
failure to recognize other independent research.

"What they say simply doesn't match reality," Robinson said. "They claim
it's a gateway drug - they say we have to stop people from using
marijuana - but the vast majority of marijuana users don't go on to use
harder drugs. The typical drug user uses marijuana for a few months and
then gets over it.

"People who go on to other drugs start with alcohol and tobacco, not
marijuana. They can't say that, because then people would question why
they're going after marijuana."

The ONDCP expects people to come after them, challenge their research,
and accuse them of playing politics for one simple reason: people like
to get high.

"There are lots of people who are not enthusiastic about drug policy,"
said Riley. "There are 15-to-20 million marijuana users in the U.S., and
they don't like the idea that their drug is illegal.

"Everyone knows meth is really bad and coke is really bad," added
Reiley, "but marijuana is a more serious drug than most people realize.
But, there isn't an activist group that is pro meth or pro heroine."

Note: Critics Contend the Government Is Fighting Pot at the Expense of
Battling Meth.

Source: ABC News (US Web)
Author: Russell Goldman
Published: August 1, 2007
Copyright: 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures
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Website: http://www.abcnews.go.com/