Marijuana legalizers not giving up yet

I'll say this for the drug legalizers - at least they're persistent in their single-minded pursuit of legal marijuana in Nevada. But my hope is that Nevada voters still aren't buying what they're selling. We'll have the answer in early November.

Despite a humiliating 61-39 percent defeat in 2002, following a victory on the "medical marijuana" issue in the 1990s, the Las Vegas-based Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana - Committee to Legalize Marijuana would be more like it - announced last Wednesday that it had obtained 70,000 signatures to put its latest drug legalization measure on the November ballot.

This committee is an offshoot of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project , which is funded in large measure by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, who has already spent more than $13 million to legalize drugs and defeat President Bush in November.

The current marijuana legalization campaign - which has nothing to do with medical marijuana - began last year with TV spots showing happy teenagers in the Netherlands, where drugs are legal, and sad Nevada teenagers, who are the alleged victims of Nevada's tough anti-drug laws. The ad posited that marijuana use among Nevada teenagers is higher than it is in Holland, but the statistics utilized to support this shaky assertion are highly suspect, and Dutch authorities are re-thinking their pro-drug policies.

Nevada MPP spokesman Bruce Mirkin told veteran journalist Dennis Myers of the Reno News & Review early this month that "the fact that an initiative went forward can be taken as an indication that we had reason to believe another effort was merited." When it comes to obfuscation, John Kerry couldn't have said it any better. For his part, Myers observed that "the (TV) argument seemed to confuse some Nevada reporters ...." No kidding! But then, that's the idea.

In recent months the MPP conducted a low-key campaign in Northern Nevada, paying volunteers to collect signatures at shopping malls and gas stations. Personally, I had the pleasure of declining to sign their petition at a local cheapo gas outlet last weekend.

Although drug legalizers always argue that marijuana is "harmless," recent medical research takes issue with that claim. In May, the Los Angeles Times (not exactly a right-wing journal) reported that "the high-potency marijuana now widely available in cities and some small towns is causing an increasing number of teenagers - and some pre-teens - to land in drug treatment centers or emergency rooms." The Times quoted Michael Dennis, a research psychologist in Bloomington, Ill., who found that kids "are not only smoking stronger stuff at a younger age but their pattern of use might be three to six 'blunts' - the equivalent of three or four joints each - just for themselves, in a day."

Moreover, an analysis published by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse revealed that the treatment rate for cannabis (marijuana) dependence or habitual use in youngsters had more than doubled in the last decade. And recent (2001) data from the U.S. Health and Human Services Department show that marijuana or hashish use "is by far the most common reason why children aged 12 to 17 were placed in licensed public or private (drug) treatment centers, accounting for more than 60 percent of reported cases."

As if those statistics aren't worrisome enough, the American Academy of Pediatrics just came out against marijuana legalization, declaring that the consequences of acute and/or long-term marijuana use "include negative effects on short-term memory, concentration, attention span, motivation and problem solving." The Academy also noted that marijuana is now classified as a "schedule one" drug, "which means that it has a high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use in the U.S. and lacks accepted safety standards for use under supervision by a physician." Does that sound "harmless" to you?

The current ballot measure would legalize possession of "only" one ounce of marijuana at a time and increase penalties for providing pot to minors and for driving under the influence of the drug. But it would also make marijuana even more widely available throughout our state, further exacerbating enforcement problems for police and school officials.

As White House Drug Czar John Walters told members of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals in Milwaukee earlier this month, "The belief that marijuana is a 'soft' drug is a myth. Marijuana is the single biggest treatment need .... We're living in the past if we believe marijuana is not a serious drug of abuse."

And I haven't even mentioned the deaths caused by marijuana-smoking drivers; recent victims of drugged drivers include Las Vegas Sun executive Sandy Thompson and Reno police officer Mike Scofield. In 2002 we had the deadly case of a retired California firefighter who was high on marijuana and booze when he drove the wrong way on I-80 east of Reno before smashing head-on into a van and killing five members of a Utah family, including four young children. I could go on and on, but I'll spare you the gory details because this is a family newspaper.

Marijuana a "harmless" drug? Forget about it!

Guy W. Farmer, of Carson City, spent more than 20 years in the front lines of the War on Drugs in several Latin American countries.