Pubdate: Wed, 06 Apr 2005
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Webpage:
Copyright: 2005 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Dana Parsons
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Schlosser (Eric Schlosser)

THE POT THICKENS IN LIBRARY RUCKUS

Even controversies that have the weight of a helium isotope -- such as the 
one I'm about to launch into -- sometimes deserve airing. It's important to 
know what issues disturb the souls of our fellow citizens. And, in those 
cases, to figure out what the rest of us can do to help them find something 
else to complain about.

The flap of the moment revolves around a scheduled appearance April 15-16 
at the Newport Beach Central Library by author and Atlantic Monthly 
correspondent Eric Schlosser. He's scheduled to talk about his bestseller, 
"Fast Food Nation," described as chronicling everything you may or may not 
want to know about the fast-food industry that helped shape (my own pun) 
modern American culture.

Schlosser's talks on the 15th and 16th are $55 affairs for adults willing 
to pay to hear him and get dinner and wine. However, in keeping with the 
tradition of the Distinguished Speakers Lecture Series, Schlosser will 
meet, between those appearances, with local high school students. He'll 
talk about his book and take questions.

This is where our plot thickens. Or, if you will, thins.

Adam Probolsky, an Orange County pollster and political consultant, 
discovered that Schlosser also wrote "Reefer Madness," a book that, among 
other things, decries the criminalization of marijuana as part of the 
larger war on drugs. He notified other parents and school officials, and 
their unease built into what Probolsky calls "a swirl out there" because 
Schlosser is being described as a "mentor" at the Saturday morning session.

"It's not that he's evil or that he should be silenced," he says. "The main 
thrust is that he shouldn't be mentoring kids." Probolsky says his concern 
is that, even if the marijuana issue doesn't come up, the teens might be 
impressed with him and then go home and research him on the Internet.

That's where, Probolsky says, they'll probably discover his thoughts on 
marijuana. Among those thoughts, he says in citing a Schlosser excerpt from 
an interview, is that Schlosser said he'd rather have his kids smoke pot 
than down hard liquor. As a designated "mentor," Probolsky argues, it sends 
a mixed message to teens who are told to avoid pot at all costs.

For a moment, I gave Probolsky his due. In the abstract, maybe it's worth 
talking about.

But that's the problem. It's all abstraction. The "controversy" goes poof 
like a puff of pot smoke.

I don't buy for a second that the kind of kids who come to a library on a 
Saturday morning would be intellectually overwhelmed by talk about 
marijuana decriminalization.

Today's kids know all they need to know about pot. But that's not really 
the point; the point is that even noted conservatives William F. Buckley 
and former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz have lamented the war 
on drugs as a failure. In so many words, they've said the same things as 
Schlosser.

Would anyone question their spending an hour with teens?

And, by the way: Schlosser says he's not pro-pot in the first place. By 
phone from his home in Northern California, he says, "I don't want to 
encourage anyone to smoke pot. I have two kids. I don't want them to smoke 
pot. I have no problem being harshly criticized for my views, but it would 
really be helpful if people knew what those views were."

I'm not here to argue pot laws or what Schlosser has or hasn't said. 
Probolsky says the issue remains "totally alive," even if no one is quite 
sure what to do about it.

What should be done is to remember that ideas shouldn't scare us. Ideas 
shouldn't prompt parents or, especially, school officials to be putting 
even minor heat on public libraries for the speakers they recruit. That 
notion is 10 times more threatening than anything Schlosser -- an 
accomplished writer whom students ought to be exposed to -- might say in an 
hour with them.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom