The Bush administration's antagonistic stance toward marijuana is misguided and counterproductive.

A recent series of full-page newspaper ads -- placed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy -- pleaded with parents to talk to their teens about marijuana, and repeated several exaggerations and distortions about the drug.

Marijuana was made illegal under federal law in 1937, a time when only a small fraction of the U.S. population had ever used it. By 2001, some 83 million Americans -- or nearly one-third of the population -- had used the drug at least once. Under a prohibition regime, marijuana use has increased 2,000 percent.

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