Pubdate: Sun, 17 Apr 2005
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2005 The Sun-Times Co.
Contact:  http://www.suntimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/81
Author: Neil Steinberg, Sun-Times Columnist
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Cited: Office of National Drug Control Policy ( www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov )
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/campaign.htm (ONDCP Media Campaign)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Note: Item excerpted from longer column

GUNS DON'T KILL, POT DOES

The strangest things excite the frenzy of Bush Republicans. I don't know 
why they were so hot to drill in the Arctic National Wilderness. But they 
were, to a degree that can't be based solely on energy policy. Maybe they 
thought it was a Moral Victory.

Or pot. Kids shouldn't take drugs, because they're a waste of time and can 
be dangerous. But pot is not exactly packing them into the emergency rooms, 
certainly not in proportion to the rabid White House assaults upon it. Talk 
about reefer madness.

The latest example is an Office of National Drug Control Policy ad running 
in national newspapers last week that suggests, falsely, that tobacco is 
less dangerous than pot. The headline is, "Introducing a really high-tar 
cigarette," next to a photo of what the ONDCP probably still calls Mary 
Jane. The text begins:

"Quite a few people think that smoking pot is less likely to cause cancer 
than a regular cigarette. You may even have heard some parents say they'd 
rather their kid smoked a little pot than get hooked on cigarettes. Wrong, 
and wrong again . . . One joint can deliver four times as much 
cancer-causing tar as one cigarette."

Yeah, and if people smoked 60 marijuana cigarettes a day, they might have a 
point. But pot smokers have no greater cancer risk than nonsmokers, and 
some studies even show they have less risk.

The big difference between smoking pot and smoking cigarettes is that for 
most people pot is something they try at 16 and abandon soon thereafter, 
while cigarettes are a lifetime habit afflicting a quarter of the 
population. But the government isn't obsessed with tobacco.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman