Informant38

Bruce Mirken/AlterNet
via KWSnet Weblog :

If your kid says: "Marijuana is a natural plant; how harmful could it be?"

The White House wants you to say: "Smoking marijuana is at least as bad as smoking cigarettes, and you already know how dangerous tobacco is to your health."

The truth: Actually, there is incontrovertible evidence that smoking tobacco increases your risk of getting cancer of the lungs, throat and other tissues that come into contact with smoke. But, despite decades of trying, no such link has ever been established with marijuana. Indeed, in one 60,000-patient study, marijuana smokers had lower rates of lung cancer than nonsmokers did. How can that be? In part, it's probably because marijuana smokers typically smoke a lot less than cigarette smokers. But there is also abundant evidence that marijuana's active components, called cannabinoids, suppress tumor growth. A review of recent research in the October 2003 issue of the journal Nature Reviews stated flatly, "cannabinoids kill tumor cells," adding that "cannabinoids have a favorable drug safety profile." Unlike tobacco, marijuana use has never been shown to increase mortality rates.

If your kid says: "Marijuana is not addictive."

The White House wants you to say: "Sixty percent of teens currently in drug treatment are dependent on marijuana. More youth enter drug treatment with a primary diagnosis of marijuana dependence than for all other illicit drugs combined."

The truth: According to the government's own figures, most of those teens in treatment for "marijuana dependence" are there because they were arrested. They were caught with a joint, offered a choice of treatment or jail, and - big surprise - chose treatment. In other words, we arrest kids for smoking marijuana, force them into treatment and then use those treatment admissions as "proof" that marijuana is addictive.