Cincinnati Visit: Drug Czar Calls Pot A Danger To Kids

[macro]

I have never used marijuana. I hope my son or any future children I have never use it, either. I don't say that to myself, but rather to make it known from where I come on this issue, and that is that I think we could save a lot of law enforcement time, money, effort, and other resources (not to mention prison space) by legalizing the stuff and controlling it in the same way that alocohol is controlled. Wouldn't that free up law enforcement to catch (and prison cells to hold) more of the people who are out to do harm to other people?

Like I said, I'm no fan of marijuana, but I don't think that it's doing any more harm to society than alcohol (some would argue that it's doing less harm), and alcohol is legal.

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Friday, April 8, 2005

Drug czar calls pot a danger to kids

By Jane Prendergast
Enquirer staff writer

WALNUT HILLS - President Bush's drug czar wants parents and kids to know: Marijuana is as serious a drug as any other.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, visited Cincinnati on Thursday as part of his push to convince Americans that marijuana isn't a "soft'' drug. Too many young people start smoking marijuana because they think it's harmless, he said.

"The single biggest enemy is cynicism,'' he said in a speech at First Step Home, a substance-abuse treatment shelter for women in Walnut Hills. "We have to pay attention. We have to correct misinformation. This is not a joke.''

Though marijuana is not as toxic as cocaine or heroin, and doesn't cause overdose or death, the drug is increasingly the primary cause nationwide of admissions to substance-abuse treatment facilities, he said. In 2002, about 130 people of every 100,000 who were 12 or older sought help for marijuana abuse. That was up by 162 percent from a decade earlier.

The White House thinks it's crucial to get its message to pre-teens because studies show people are much less likely to become dependent on drugs after 19, Walter said. He called marijuana abuse a "pediatric-onset disease.''

Walters said he supports confidential, non-punitive drug testing for teenagers as a way to get them help. About 140 schools across the country are doing that now, he said.

To parents, he advised: "You have to be concerned about this before you think you have to be concerned about this. Tell (your children) what you care about."

The First Step Home started in 1993. Executive Director Margo Spence said the facility is the only licensed treatment option in Hamilton County that allows children to live there with their mothers.

[RBA]

I don't know if it should be legal or illegal.

All I know is that I never did it, mainly because it's/was illegal. I would probably had tried it if it was legal.

[macro]

That's an excellent point, RBA, but aren't we killing a gnat with a sledgehammer with all the law enforcement resources and prison cells that are tied up keeping it illegal?

[Stewie]

All I know is that I never did it, mainly because it's/was illegal. I would probably had tried it if it was legal.

I think there are lots of people who do try it for the very reason that it is illegal.


I have done it a couple times (the legality wasn't an influence), and I just don't see what the big deal is. I agree with macro in that marijuana should be viewed in a similar light as alcohol. Law enforcement should have much bigger fish to fry than to crack down on marijuana. I'm not promoting the use of it, but I don't think it should be as much of a taboo as some people are making it out to be.

[RedFanAlways1966]

Alcohol is legal... marijuana is not. Makes absolutely no sense to me. Drink 15 beers and attempt to run machinery or drive. Smoke 15 joints and try the same. Neither is probably a good idea. If you sample 50 people and their results, 25 drinking 15 beers and 25 smoking 15 joints, I would bet my life savings that the beer drinkers would struggle much-much-much more.

Man... I am going to get labeled with the big L now. Ouch!

[macro]

Alcohol is legal... marijuana is not. Makes absolutely no sense to me. Drink 15 beers and attempt to run machinery or drive. Smoke 15 joints and try the same. Neither is probably a good idea. If you sample 50 people and their results, 25 drinking 15 beers and 25 smoking 15 joints, I would bet my life savings that the beer drinkers would struggle much-much-much more.

Man... I am going to get labeled with the big L now. Ouch!

You Liberal, you!!

[pedro]

I've never known someone to smoke 15 joints at once. Now beers on the other hand.....

Pot should be legalized but the legal age should be same as beer/liquor.

It will be legalized eventually but not until it becomes financially impossible to jail people on pot charges. We're on our way now.

[ochre]

make it legal and tax it.

Hell make all drugs legal and tax them.

The market will seek its level. Jails will empty.

[traderumor]

I do understand this argument, but recreational drug taking has always been a taboo in our culture. You would think Frito Lays and similar snack companies would lobby hard to get pot legalized

One major difference I see between alcohol and pot is that there is a level of drinking that has little to no effect on most people. For example, someone who sips a glass of wine at dinner is not likely to feel much of the inebriating effects. But, sit at the same table and smoke a joint after the meal would most likely give someone a buzz immediately. Furthermore, I don't think you're going to see a day when you can walk into a store similar to a liquor store and buy an ounce of pot off a licensed dealer. While the abuse effects may be similar, like if you smoke a couple of joints vs. drinking a six pack of beer, there is also a level of drinking alcohol that is essentially harmless. I don't think the same can be said of smoking pot.

[macro]

I hear ya, traderumor, and I won't argue that pot is harmless. (Actually, I have no idea if it is harmless or not, but for the sake of the discussion, we'll assume it's not harmless.) But does the ends of keeping it illegal justify the huge price we're paying as a society to keep it that way?

Smoking, bulimia, anorexia, and sleep-deprivation are all very harmful to those who engage in them, but they're not illegal. We don't throw people in jail for doing them and make cops spend an entire shift trying to bust someone for throwing up after a meal.

[westofyou]

I do understand this argument, but recreational drug taking has always been a taboo in our culture

Not really, more of a recent thing FDA and opiates and Cocaine in the late 19th century, but if you want to see how pot was demonized look no further than the forests owned by the Hearsts and the Nylon created by Dow Chemical. The attempt to smear pot was a twofold hammer associating it with those crazy negros and their jazz music.......

[Redsfaithful]

I do understand this argument, but recreational drug taking has always been a taboo in our culture.

I don't think this is true at all. Well maybe taboo to some, but alcohol has always been taboo to some as well.

What makes a drug taboo is generally whether or not it's legal. Tobacco is a harmful substance, alcohol is a harmful substance, but neither carry the "taboo" that marijuana carries. The only difference is that the government decided marijuana shouldn't be allowed.

For the record I've never done any type of drug, and I've only drank a handful of times in my life. But it really irks me that the government feels like it can tell people what they can or can't put into their bodies.

I just read a really interesting article in Wired the other day about Bupe, a drug that helps people kick heroin much better than methadone, but it's not being prescribed enough because of shortsighted government laws. It's frustrating.

Prison building, staffing, etc. shouldn't be the huge industry it is, it's absolutely ridiculous that over 2 million Americans are incarcerated. When that many people are in jail it's clear to me that there's something wrong with the law, not with the people.

[REDREAD]

Just a side point though.. there's a chemical in pot that is a potent carcinogen.

Since there seems to be a lot of money and energy spent to get people off cigarettes, is it worth legalizing something like pot that has a similiar cancer/public health risk?

I'm not saying yes or no, but that's something most people don't consider.

(I'm undecided on the issue, and the above is one reason why).

[Red Leader]

One major difference I see between alcohol and pot is that there is a level of drinking that has little to no effect on most people. For example, someone who sips a glass of wine at dinner is not likely to feel much of the inebriating effects. But, sit at the same table and smoke a joint after the meal would most likely give someone a buzz immediately. Furthermore, I don't think you're going to see a day when you can walk into a store similar to a liquor store and buy an ounce of pot off a licensed dealer. While the abuse effects may be similar, like if you smoke a couple of joints vs. drinking a six pack of beer, there is also a level of drinking alcohol that is essentially harmless. I don't think the same can be said of smoking pot.

For the most part, it depends on the individual. If I haven't drank alcohol in a long, long time and I drink a beer, I'm going to feel a whole lot different than someone that drinks daily. Same is true with pot. If you smoke daily, you have a higher tolerance for it, if you don't, it will effect you immediately, just like alcohol.

I wouldn't be surprised to see it sold from a licensed "federal" dealer. You can already get it as a prescription from the pharmacy, and the government already grows pot for medicinal purposes.

[pedro]

Just a side point though.. there's a chemical in pot that is a potent carcinogen.

Since there seems to be a lot of money and energy spent to get people off cigarettes, is it worth legalizing something like pot that has a similiar cancer/public health risk?

I'm not saying yes or no, but that's something most people don't consider.

(I'm undecided on the issue, and the above is one reason why).

Inhaling any type of smoke can't be good for you, but I've never read a study linking marijuana to lung cancer.