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norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=5515

Your Government Is Lying To You (Again) About Marijuana

A Refutation of the Drug Czar's "Open Letter to America's Prosecutors"

By:
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
(NORML)
1600 K Street, NW
Suite 501
Washington, DC 20006-2832
T 202.483.5500 | F 202.483.0057
E-mail: [e-mail]
www.norml.org


ALLEGATION #1
"There is a serious drug problem in this country."

TRUTH
America does have a serious drug problem, and our public policy needs to better address this issue with health and science-based educational programs, and by providing more accessible treatment to those who are drug-dependent. Unfortunately, the bulk of our nation’s current anti-drug efforts and priorities remain fixated on arresting and jailing drug consumers – particularly recreational marijuana smokers.

In this sense, there is a serious drug enforcement problem in this country. Despite the notion that America’s drug war focuses primarily on targeting so-called hard drugs and hard drug dealers, data compiled by the FBI reports that nearly half of all drug arrests in America are for marijuana only.[1]

In 2001, the last year for which statistics are available, law enforcement arrested an estimated 723,627 persons for marijuana violations.[2] This total far exceeds the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.[3] Today, it is estimated that taxpayers spend between $7.5 and $10 billion dollars annually arresting and prosecuting individuals for marijuana violations[4] – monies that would be far better served targeting violent crime, including terrorism.

Since 1992, approximately six million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, a greater number than the entire populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming combined.[5] Nearly 90 percent of these total arrests were for simple possession, not cultivation or sale.[6]

Despite the fact that reported adult use of marijuana has remained relatively constant for the past decade, annual marijuana arrests have more than doubled since 1991.[7] Arrests for cocaine and heroin have declined sharply during much of this period,[8] indicating that increased enforcement of marijuana laws is being achieved at the expense of enforcing laws against the possession and trafficking of more dangerous drugs.

Rather than stay this course, federal officials ought to take a page from their more successful public health campaigns discouraging teen pregnancy, drunk driving, and adolescent tobacco smoking – all of which have been significantly reduced in recent years. America has not achieved these results by banning the use of alcohol or tobacco, or by targeting and arresting adults who engage in these behaviors responsibly, but through honest, fact-based public education campaigns. There is no reason why these same common sense principles and strategies should not apply to marijuana and responsible adult marijuana use.



ALLEGATION #2
"Nationwide, no drug matches the threat posed by marijuana."

TRUTH
This statement is pure hyperbole. By overstating marijuana’s potential harms, our policy-makers and law enforcement community undermine their credibility, and their ability to effectively educate the public of the legitimate harms associated with more dangerous drugs like heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine.

In fact, almost all drugs – including those that are legal – pose greater threats to individual health and/or society than does marijuana. According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 46,000 people die each year from alcohol-induced deaths (not including motor vehicle fatalities where alcohol impairment was a contributing factor), such as overdose and cirrhosis.[9] Similarly, more than 440,000 premature deaths annually are attributed to tobacco smoking.[10] By comparison, marijuana is non-toxic and cannot cause death by overdose.[11] In a large-scale population study of marijuana use and mortality published in the American Journal of Public Health, marijuana use, even long-term, "showed little if any effect … on non-AIDS mortality in men and on total mortality in women."[12]

After an exhaustive, federally commissioned study by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1999 examining all of marijuana’s potential health risks, authors concluded, "Except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range tolerated for other medications."[13] (It should be noted that many risks associated with marijuana and smoking may be mitigated by alternative routes of administration such as vaporization.) The IOM further added, "There is no conclusive evidence that marijuana causes cancer in humans, including cancers usually related to tobacco use."[14] A recent, large-scale case-controlled study affirmed this finding, concluding that "the balance of evidence … does not favor the idea the marijuana as commonly used in the community is a major causal factor for head, neck, or lung cancer."[15]

Numerous studies and federally commissioned reports have endorsed marijuana’s relative safety compared to other drugs, and recommended its decriminalization or legalization.[16] Virtually all of these studies have concluded that the criminal "classification of cannabis is disproportionate in relation both to its inherent harmfulness, and to the harmfulness of other substances."[17] Even a pair of editorials by the premiere British medical journal, The Lancet, acknowledge: "The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health.[18] … It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat … than alcohol or tobacco."[19] Indeed, by far the greatest danger to health posed by the use of marijuana stems from a criminal arrest and/or conviction.

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ALLEGATION #3
"60 percent of teenagers in treatment have a primary marijuana diagnosis. This means that the addiction to marijuana by our youth exceeds their addiction rates for alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy and all other drugs combined."

TRUTH
This statement is purposely misleading. Although admissions to drug rehabilitation clinics among adolescent marijuana users have increased dramatically since the mid-1990s, this rise in marijuana admissions is due exclusively to a proportional increase in teens referred to drug treatment by the criminal justice system.[20] Primarily, these are teens arrested for pot possession, brought before a criminal judge (or drug court), and ordered to rehab in lieu of jail or juvenile detention. As such, this data is in no way indicative of whether the person referred to treatment is suffering from any symptoms of dependence associated with marijuana use; most individuals admitted to treatment do so simply to avoid jail time. In fact, since 1995, the proportion of admissions from all sources other than the criminal justice system has actually declined, according to the federal Drug and Alcohol Services Information System (DASIS).[21] Consequently, DASIS reports that today, "over half (54 percent) of all adolescent marijuana admissions [are] through the criminal justice system."[22] (Referrals from schools and substance abuse providers comprise another 22 percent of all admissions.[23])


ALLEGATION #4
"We may never rid this country of every crack pipe or marijuana plant. However, research proves that we have made substantial success in reducing drug use in this country."

TRUTH
In fact, marijuana enforcement has had no discernable long-term impact on marijuana availability or use. According to the most recent survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, teenagers report that marijuana has surpassed tobacco and alcohol as the easiest drug to obtain.[24] This result is hardly surprising, given that annual federal data compiled by the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future project reports that an estimated 85 percent of 12th graders say that marijuana is "fairly easy" or "very easy to get."[25] This percentage has remained virtually unchanged since the mid-1970s[26] – despite remarkably increased marijuana penalties, enforcement, and the prevalence of anti-marijuana propaganda since that time.

The percentage of adolescents experimenting with marijuana has also held steady over the long-term. According to annual data compiled by Monitoring the Future, 47.3 percent of 12th graders reported having used marijuana in 1975.[27] Despite billions of dollars spent on drug education efforts (such as the federally funded DARE program) since that time, today’s number (for the Class of 2001) remains virtually unchanged at 49 percent.[28]

In addition, according to data compiled by the federal National Household on Drug Abuse survey, an estimated 2.4 million Americans tried marijuana for the first time in the year 2000, up from 1.4 million in 1990 and .6 million in 1965.[29] Not surprisingly, nearly one out of every two American adults now acknowledges they have used marijuana, up from fewer than one in three in 1983.[30]



ALLEGATION #5
"The truth is that marijuana is not harmless."

TRUTH
This statement is correct; marijuana isn’t harmless. In fact, no substance is, including those that are legal. (As such, our nation does not base its laws on the presumption that something must be "harmless" to be legal. Such a standard would justify the criminalization for almost every imaginable activity, since virtually none are totally harmless.)

Any risk presented by marijuana smoking falls within the ambit of choice we permit the individual in a free society.[31] As such, marijuana’s relative risk to the user and society does not support criminal prohibition or the continued arrest of more than 700,000 Americans on marijuana charges every year. As recently concluded by the Canadian House of Commons in their December 2002 report recommending marijuana decriminalization, "The consequences of conviction for possession of a small amount of cannabis for personal use are disproportionate to the potential harm associated with the behavior."[32]



ALLEGATION #6
"As a factor in emergency room visits, marijuana has risen 176 percent since 1994, and now surpasses heroin."

TRUTH
This statement is also purposely misleading, as it wrongly suggests that marijuana use is a causal factor in an alarming number of emergency room visits. It is not.

Federal statistics gathered by the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) do indicate an increase in the number of people "mentioning" marijuana during hospital emergency room visits. (This increase is hardly unique to marijuana however, as the overall number of drug mentions has risen dramatically since the late 1980s – likely due to improved federal reporting procedures.[33]) However, a marijuana "mention" does not mean that marijuana caused the hospital visit or that it was a factor in leading to the ER episode, only that the patient said that he or she had used marijuana previously.

For every emergency room visit related to drug use (so-called "drug abuse episodes"), hospital staff list up to five drugs the patient reports having used recently, regardless of whether or not their use of the drug caused the visit. The frequency with which any drug is mentioned in such visits is generally proportional to its frequency of use, irrespective of its inherent dangers.

It is foolish for anyone – especially those in the administration’s anti-drug office – to suggest or imply that marijuana is in any way potentially more dangerous to one’s health than heroin. Marijuana is mentioned to hospital staff more frequently than heroin, not because it’s more dangerous, but simply because a far greater percentage of the population uses marijuana than uses heroin. (It is also worth noting that alcohol is by far the drug most frequently reported to DAWN, even though it is reported only when present in combination with another reportable drug.[34])

Moreover, marijuana is rarely mentioned independent of other drugs. In fact, marijuana mentions alone accounted for less than 4 percent of all drug-related hospital emergency department visits (a level on par with common household pain relievers like Acetaminophen), and only about one quarter of one tenth of one percent of all emergency room visits.[35]

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ALLEGATION #7
"Smoked marijuana leads to changes in the brain similar to those caused by the use of cocaine and heroin."

TRUTH
Allegations that marijuana smoking alters brain function or has long-term effects on cognition are reckless and scientifically unfounded. Federally sponsored population studies conducted in Jamaica, Greece and Costa Rica found no significant differences in brain function between long-term smokers and non-users.[36] Similarly, a 1999 study of 1,300 volunteers published in The American Journal of Epidemiology reported "no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users, and nonusers of cannabis" over a 15-year period.[37] Most recently, a meta-analysis of neuropsychological studies of long-term marijuana smokers by the National Institute on Drug Abuse reaffirmed this conclusion.[38] In addition, a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in April reported that even former heavy marijuana smokers experience no negative measurable effects on intelligence quotient.[39]

Claims specifically charging that marijuana leads to brain changes similar to those induced by heroin and cocaine are based solely on the results of a handful of animal studies that demonstrated that THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana) can stimulate dopamine production under certain extreme conditions, and that the immediate cessation of THC (via the administration of a chemical blocking agent) will initiate some mild symptoms of withdrawal. These findings have little bearing on the human population because, according to the US Institute of Medicine, "The long half-life and slow elimination from the body of THC … prevent substantial abstinence symptoms" in humans.[40] As a result, such symptoms have only been identified in rare, unique patient settings – limited to adolescents in treatment for substance abuse, or in clinical research trials where volunteers are administered marijuana or THC daily.[41]



ALLEGATION #8
"One recent study involving a roadside check of reckless drivers (not impaired by alcohol) showed that 45 percent tested positive for marijuana."

TRUTH
Conveniently, there is no citation given for this report. However, this claim appears to be derived from a lone 1994 (hardly "recent") study published in the New England Journal of Medicine examining marijuana prevalence – not marijuana-associated culpability – in drivers arrested for reckless driving.[42] It should be noted that the drivers who tested positive for "marijuana" in this study actually tested positive for traces of a non-psychoactive marijuana metabolite during a urinalysis performed at the scene. Since marijuana metabolites remain present in the urine for days or even weeks after past use,[43] their detection is not indicative of intoxication or impairment, and it is misleading for the ONDCP to imply otherwise. While it is never safe or appropriate to drive under the influence of any substance – including marijuana – neither is it sound public policy to sanction sober drivers as if they are impaired based solely on the presence of inactive metabolites.

As to the broader question of marijuana’s acute impact on driving performance, while it is well established that alcohol increases accident risk, evidence of marijuana’s culpability in on-road driving accidents is much less convincing.

Although marijuana intoxication has been shown to mildly impair psychomotor skills, this impairment does not appear to be severe or long lasting.[44] In driving simulator tests, this impairment is typically manifested by subjects decreasing their driving speed and requiring greater time to respond to emergency situations.[45]

Nevertheless, this impairment does not appear to play a significant role in on-road traffic accidents. A 2002 review of seven separate crash culpability studies involving 7,934 drivers reported, "Crash culpability studies have failed to demonstrate that drivers with cannabinoids in the blood are significantly more likely than drug-free drivers to be culpable in road crashes."[46] This result is likely because subjects under the influence of marijuana are aware of their impairment and compensate for it accordingly, such as by slowing down and by focusing their attention when they know a response will be required. This reaction is the opposite of that exhibited by drivers under the influence of alcohol, who tend to drive in a more risky manner proportional to their intoxication.[47]

Today, a large body of research exists analyzing the impact of marijuana on psychomotor skills and actual driving performance. (Much of this research is available online through NORML’s website.) This research consists of driving simulator studies, on-road performance studies, crash culpability studies, and summary reviews of the existing evidence. To date, the result of this research is fairly consistent: Marijuana has a measurable yet relatively mild effect on psychomotor skills, yet it does not appear to play a significant role in vehicle crashes, particularly when compared to alcohol. As summarized by the Canadian Senate’s exhaustive 2002 report: "Cannabis: Our Position for a Canadian Public Policy," "Cannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in automobile driving."[48]

ALLEGATION #9
"The truth is that marijuana is addictive. … Marijuana users have an addiction rate of about 10%, and of the 5.6 million drug users who are suffering from illegal drug dependence or abuse, 62 percent are dependent on or abusing marijuana."

TRUTH
Marijuana use is not marijuana abuse. According to the US Institute of Medicine’s 1999 Report: "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," "Millions of Americans have tried marijuana, but most are not regular users, … [and] few marijuana users become dependent on it."[49] In fact, less than 10 percent of marijuana users ever exhibit symptoms of dependence (as defined by the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-III-R criteria.)[50] By comparison 15 percent of alcohol users, 17 percent of cocaine users, and a whopping 32 percent of cigarette smokers statistically exhibit symptoms of drug dependence.[51]

Marijuana is well recognized as lacking the so-called "dependence liability" of other substances. According to the IOM, "Experimental animals that are given the opportunity to self administer cannabinoids generally do not choose to do so, which has led to the conclusion that they are not reinforcing or rewarding."[52] Among humans, most marijuana users voluntarily cease their marijuana smoking by their late 20s or early 30s – often citing health or professional concerns and/or the decision to start a family.[53] Contrast this pattern with that of the typical tobacco smoker – many of whom begin as teens and continue smoking daily the rest of their lives.

That's not to say that some marijuana smokers do not become psychologically dependent on marijuana or find quitting difficult. But a comprehensive study released this fall by the Canadian Senate concluded that this dependence "is less severe and less frequent than dependence on other psychotropic substances, including alcohol and tobacco."[54] Observable withdrawal symptoms attributable to marijuana are also exceedingly rare. According to the Institute of Medicine, these symptoms are "mild and short lived"[55] compared to the profound physical withdrawal symptoms of other drugs, such as alcohol or heroin, and unlikely to persuade former smokers to re-initiate their marijuana use.[56]

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