Mamabudz

Official tackles marijuana myths
The Press-Journal | February 18, 2004
By Tonya Alanez staff writer

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — "Marijuana is not medicine" and we need to keep it away from our children was the message delivered by a Washington anti-drug official at a lecture Tuesday.

Andrea G. Barthwell, from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, is deputy director for Demand Reduction, a youth drug prevention program. She introduced a "fact-based marijuana initiative" to a group of more than 100 at the Indian River Community College's Mueller campus.

Barthwell outlined the following five "marijuana myths:"

• It is harmless.

• It is not addictive.

• Youth experimentation is inevitable.

• We should legalize marijuana.

• Prisons are filled with marijuana users.

"The legalizers are back and they're trying to convince Americans that smoked marijuana is a medicine and you can use drugs responsively," Barthwell said at the lecture sponsored by the Substance Abuse Council of Indian River County.

Since 1996 eight states, including Arizona, Alaska, California, Maine and Oregon, have passed medical marijuana laws. Approval of medical marijuana has also been approved in Canada.

"The people that have this as an agenda are not concerned for the sick or dying," Barthwell said. "They are concerned about getting marijuana into the hands of more people for personal use."

Barthwell presented information that said marijuana acutely affects learning, attention and motor skills and lends to gaps in a user's "fund of knowledge." She said these are some of the reasons to be concerned about youth and marijuana use.

In her hour-long discussion, Barthwell advocated for student drug testing and increased parental involvement in the fight to keep kids off drugs.

"We know that people do more of that which is sanctioned and allowed than that which is prohibited," Barthwell said, citing statistics that showed marijuana use nearly tripled in the Netherlands since coffee shops began selling it.

"It is important to have a non-drug-using norm to prevent children from using marijuana," she said.

Sgt. Brad Fojtik of the Indian River County Sheriff's Office School Resource Team said, "It's nice for somebody to step up to the plate and say what we've been trying to preach to our kids. There is no medicinal value in (marijuana), period."

- tonya.alanez@scripps.com

Personally, I speak to, discuss with and generally listen to kids. I find that preaching doesn't go over too well. And Preaching in this context has a sickly flavor of the Church of the Holy DARE .

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Ahhhh...editorial license

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