IKILL3RI

April 09, 2009
By Ellen Gamerman
Source: Wall Street Journal

justice USA -- Every April 20, marijuana smokers around the country light up for an unofficial holiday celebrating pot that stems from the smoker slang "420." This year, as the drug war rages in Mexico, the festivities fall against an increasingly violent backdrop.

Some antidrug advocates are using the occasion to jump-start a movement against marijuana not just for health and legal reasons, but on moral grounds. American pot smokers, they say, are unwittingly supporting drug cartels in Mexico.

Aaron Byzak, president of the North Coastal Prevention Coalition, an antidrug group in north San Diego County, says he'll focus on the Mexican drug war when he addresses 1,000 seventh- to 10th-graders at the group's annual antidrug festival, also held on April 20, at an amusement park in Vista, Calif. Mr. Byzak will urge the kids to think of Mexico's drug lords if they're offered a puff.

"This is a prime opportunity for us to educate them about how every bit of marijuana someone smokes here is giving more power and more money to the drug cartels in Mexico," he says.

The drug war in Mexico, which in the past two years has left thousands dead, comes as prevention groups search for new ways to send a clear message about the dangers of pot. Unlike campaigns against cocaine or heroin use, the argument against marijuana is more complex. Thirteen states have legalized its use for medical purposes, and an organized movement is pushing to decriminalize it altogether.

John Redman, who heads Californians for Drug Free Youth, says violence in Mexico helped spark the creation of a new antipot group, the California Marijuana Initiative, two months ago. One of its central themes: Smoking marijuana is not a victimless crime.

Lloyd Johnston, principal investigator of the University of Michigan's "Monitoring the Future Study," which is funded by the federal government's National Institute on Drug Abuse and tracks drug, alcohol and tobacco use, says he plans to press the Obama administration and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America to use the death toll in Mexico to engage the consciences of pot smokers.

Mr. Johnston likens the Mexico argument to the campaign against secondhand cigarette smoke; when smokers learned their habit was harming others, he says, many quit who wouldn't have otherwise.

The administration's pick for "drug czar," or head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske, declined to comment because he hasn't yet been confirmed by the Senate.

Marijuana accounts for the bulk of Mexican drug-trade revenues, bringing in more than twice as much money as cocaine, according to a study released last year by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. John Walters, director of drug-control policy for eight years under President George W. Bush, estimates that roughly a third of all marijuana smoked in the U.S. comes from Mexico, which he says supplies a cheaper, lower-grade product.

Pro-legalization groups argue that the criminalization of the drug is what's fueling the violence and compare it to the violence surrounding the alcohol industry during Prohibition.

Keith Stroup, who founded the pro-legalization group NORML and serves as its legal counsel, says violence in Mexico "does help encourage a long-needed debate over the possible merits of legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana in this country."

Mr. Stroup says that a growing number of Americans are smoking pot grown in this country, rather than Mexico, thanks in part to a "Grow America" movement in the U.S. Many pot smokers believe domestic marijuana is more organic. "Just like someone who wants a good wine is going to buy from California or France, the same is true for marijuana," he says.

The argument that pot smokers are unintentional collaborators in drug-related violence has been tried before. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the ONDCP ran ads in which one middle-aged man told another that buying drugs supported international terrorism. That campaign broadened into ads saying that casual drug use supported violent groups in Mexico, Colombia and U.S. cities.

"A lot of young people, especially teenagers, can sometimes be a little impervious to just simply, 'This is bad for your health,' or 'This is bad for your future,"' says Mr. Walters. "They are idealistic and ... they don't like supporting people who kill others and harm the innocent."

But research suggested the ads did not work. A federally funded study released in 2006 and conducted by the research firm Westat and the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication found that antidrug ads by the ONDCP during that time had no effect on the kids who'd seen them, and in some cases actually made them more interested in marijuana.

"Our best guess is that the more kids saw lots of ads saying, 'Don't use drugs,' the more they came to believe that all their peers were using drugs," says Robert Hornik, one of the study's lead investigators. Researchers found no evidence that any one antidrug argument worked better than another, he says.

Pot smoking by teens has dropped 25% in the past seven years, according to an ONDCP spokesman, who added that two smaller-scale studies conducted around the same period as the larger federally funded study showed that the agency's antidrug campaigns have been effective.

Some say that marijuana grown in the U.S. is distinguishable by sight from that grown in Mexico. Mexican pot is brown and often contains seeds and stems, while U.S. marijuana is greener, says Richard Lee, who only supplies California cannabis at his medical marijuana clinic in Oakland, Calif. Smokers prefer U.S.-grown pot, he says, but not for political reasons.

"The smell of the Mexican is so bad, my girlfriend wouldn't let anybody smoke it in the house," he says.

mud_head

zomg. first of all, i have never smoked brick weed, and not "every bit of weed smoked" supports mexico. only those that buy brick weed do that. everything i had purchased was good old fashioned american cannabis. you know what? i want to make a patriotic cannabis plant... red white and blue... i know there are strains with those colors. but obviously the smaller scale studies were ineffective, considering they said in the affirmative what a much larger scale study said in the...negatory? anyway, the smaller ones had ill proportioned group of people. obviously. anyway, THOSE GUYS ARE RETARDED.

i have said my piece.

Everlong2019

This is stupid...If marijuana were legalized their would be no mexican drug war (atleast not on pot) and every bit of marijuana smoked could be US marijuana rolled into fine cigars made from marijuana leafs.

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stodrom

*sigh* they're never going to get it...

If you turn it into a crime, criminals come around to profit.

same with any black market

yoman3

This made me so mad, and it could be turned around to be aimed at them. Supporting ANTI-legalization groups support illegal drug cartels, because if marijuana were legalized these cartels wouldn't get as much money as they earn now, and marijuana could be legally grown and regulated in the U.S.

MestUp7

Oh, so it's our fault now?

What a bunch of hypocritical, ignorant pigs.

McGruff

Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive.

It's time for me to stop buying American liquor and beer. I don't want to be guilty of funding the corruption anymore.

TheQuestionMark

"Mr. Byzak will urge the kids to think of Mexico's drug lords if they're offered a puff."

ooooooookaaay....

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"I love you Mary Jane"
-Spiderman

Thedayoudied

dont u think a war fueled by a plant that people are oh so obviously going to use anyway, would imply that it should just be legal. i mean hell, if we're so unwittingly supporting drug cartels in mexico, that tells me the problem wont go away and we're still going to continue to smoke!!! good greif, i hate all these non-arguments against weed THAT STEM FROM THE FACT ITS ILLEGAL!!!!

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nicki

Lets see if I got this right.

We got drug laws which created a huge Black Market opportunity.

Of course the Mexican Drug Cartels have competition and they are greedy.

Since they have lots of money and don't care about laws anyway, they buy guns and other items on the international black market and kill people who get in their way or threaten their business.

Now, the corrupt Mexican government says we have to stop illegal drug consumption, that we have to change our laws.

They also want us to change our gun laws even though 90 percent of the guns recovered from the Cartels did not come from US gun shops.

Seems to me there are better solutions.

1. Legalize drugs, cut off the profits to the drug cartels, no money, no guns.
2. Mexico should clean up their own government. Clean government creates economic opportunity, that will fix Mexico's social problems.
3. Prohbitions don't work, we should adopt tolerance toward other people's rights, just ask they reciprocate.

We can have our pot, the NRA can have their guns. Reasonable regulations can be made that allow a balance between individual rights and legitimate public safety needs.

Zero tolerance on anything is a Zero intelligence solution

Nicki