Pubdate: Sat, 16 Sep 2000
Source: Blade, The (OH)
Copyright: 2000 The Blade
Contact:  541 North Superior St., Toledo OH 43660
Website: http://www.toledoblade.com/

MCCAFFERY'S WAR IS JUST PLAIN IGNORANT

"It would be sending the wrong message to our nation's children." "Drug use 
would skyrocket." Those were the words of Gen. Barry McCaffery speaking on 
medical marijuana initiatives in various states, including California's 
Prop 215.

After the latest National Household Survey on Drug Abuse was released, the 
general is eating his own words, though he's far too busy dreaming up some 
other dead horse to whip. The survey showed a decline in marijuana use 
among teens, despite "the message."

The news is a double-edged sword, of course. That teens are using less 
marijuana is good news, but it is also bad news because of the fact that 
teens are using more of the hard drugs like heroin.

Policies, like politics, often leave one to decide between the lesser of 
two evils, and choosing heroin over marijuana is not the lesser of two 
evils. Choosing stupidity and rhetoric over of rational policies, is not 
the lesser of two evils. Choosing a "war" over "harm reduction" is just 
plain ignorance.

Albert Einstein once said, "You cannot solve today's problems by using the 
level of thinking that created them in the first place." Yet some still 
believe that prohibition and imprisonment is the answer to a complex 
problem. It isn't. If it were, 60 years of prohibition and punitive 
measures would have wiped out drug use altogether.

Instead, we're left with a nation still choosing between two evils, 
ignorance and stupidity. But who is paying the price? The thousands of 
teenagers who have chosen heroin over marijuana, that's who.

The lesser of two evils is still evil, but marijuana is the creation of 
God, heroin is the creation of man. Whom do you trust more with your children?

JIM WHITE
Oregon
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