Pubdate: Mon, 07 Oct 2002
Source: Springfield News-Leader (MO)
Copyright: 2002 The Springfield News-Leader
Contact:  http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1129
Author: Carl Smith

BUSH ADS FOCUS ON WRONG DRUG

"Alcohol kills six times more teen-agers than all other drugs combined. 
What's your kid doing tonight?"

That's one of the advertising messages to be used in the recently announced 
campaign to combat underage drinking.

Billboards around Springfield show a handsome NASCAR driver, a race car 
emblazoned with beer logos and a bottle of beer. The message to the kids 
seems to be "beer will make you the guy every boy wants to be and every 
girl wants to be with."

John P. Walters, President Bush's drug czar, recently embarked on a 
$547,000-per-day national advertising campaign proclaiming marijuana as the 
greatest hazard our kids are facing, even though there isn't a single 
documented death from marijuana toxicity or overdose.

He says kids would be confused if we allowed the sick and dying to use 
marijuana as medicine, and has rededicated himself to the elimination of 
marijuana from the Earth and the arrest of anybody possessing this 
God-given plant.

The government claims marijuana is a "gateway" drug, has potential (but 
unverifiable) negative health consequences and users might drive a car and 
kill somebody.

The truth is most hard drug users identify alcohol or tobacco, not 
marijuana, as their "gateway" into drug use.

We don't incarcerate adult or underage alcohol or tobacco users even though 
the proof of negative health consequences and deaths are well documented.

And if adults can legally drink themselves to death as long as they use a 
designated driver and avoid public drunkenness, why can't we apply the same 
standards to adults who consume marijuana, a substance that doesn't kill?

Carl Smith, Ozark
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