To "All Things Considered":
You folks should be ashamed of yourselves for such a poorly researched piece on the potential effects of marijuana legalization. I was particularly offended (and irritated) by your misstatements regarding the impact of less restrictive access to cannabis by adults in the Netherlands on teenage marijuana use there. I have included two references below (with links) that demonstrate that Dutch teen cannabis use is still about half the levels found in the US. There was no spike in teen use in the Netherlands after their coffee shops opened -- none whatsoever.
It was also very frustrating to hear your multiple sclerosis patient describe using cannabis to let her "escape her body". How about the use of cannabis by MS patients to reduce pain and muscle spasticity and to slow the progression of the disease? That fact, which has been well-documented by medical research in a number of countries, is why every state that has legalized medical cannabis here (thirteen now, soon to be seventeen or more) allows its use by MS patients. It is also why surveys of MS patients in Great Britain document cannabis use by over 40% of them, even in the harsh legal climate they face today. (Estimates of cannabis use by MS patients in the US range from 25%-40% also.)
Perhaps the final insult (to our intelligence) was from your two fake farmers who complain that they are left with just "seeds and stems" after paying taxes and giving the retailer his cut. How about $500/pound? Does that sound like "seeds and stems"? Although that amount is perhaps only one-sixth what pot farmers can make today on the illicit market, it sure beats the return from beans and corn. It is also the amount we are working with in several states (New Mexico, Rhode Island, Oregon and -- soon -- Tennessee) as a reasonable return for legal medical cannabis farmers. Reasonable -- heck, it's a king's ransom.
To do your entire story without interviewing a single drug policy reformer or legitimate cannabis producer -- or even the health department program staff who administer medical cannabis programs in thirteen states -- was a travesty. You owe your listeners a reality-based rebuttal to this story that was simply painful to listen to. Particularly for folks like me who have lost almost everything we have for the "crime" of providing cannabis (free of charge, I might add) to terminally ill neighbors. Come on, NPR. If I had wanted more of the propaganda pablum being shoveled by our nation's drug worriers, I'd talk to the ex-sheriff in a neighboring county. If, that is, he weren't now on probation after being convicted of selling Lortabs and other pharmaceutical poison to our area's youth.
If you ever want to get real on this vitally important subject, feel free to get in touch.
FBN
Federal Bureau of Prisons # 16502-075
(www.saveberniesfarm.com)
Now for just three of many references your reporter could have found on Google with a few clicks of his mouse.
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The war on drugs may be actually increasing, not decreasing, teen drug use.... Such are the responses provoked by a study released this month. The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) survey, comparing drug use between American teenagers and European teenagers, found that a much higher percentage of American teenagers consume illicit drugs than do their European counterparts.
The study, which was released last month at a meeting of the World Health Organization in Stockholm, was conducted by questioning tenth graders from nationally representative samples. 110,000 teens from Europe and the US participated in the questionnaire.
One of the ironies of the drug war is that where it was been waged most loudly and enthusiastically is precisely the place where teen drug use is now most entrenched. Conversely where drug war rhetoric is comparatively mute, teen usage of illicit drugs is much lower. In the Netherlands, for example, which has the most liberal drug policy in Europe and where marijuana is effectively legal, marijuana use among teens is actually lower than in the United States. The survey found 28% of Dutch teens smoked marijuana as compared with 41% of American teens, and 23% of American teens had experimented with other illicit drugs as compared with only 6% of European teens. (Link:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/176/eurostudy.shtml)
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The prohibition of marijuana does not reduce use among teens. On the contrary, it creates an unregulated black market for this product, which makes marijuana easier for youth to obtain than cigarettes or alcohol.2 Prohibition of marijuana exposes children to other drugs on the illicit drug market.
The Netherlands addresses the gateway problem, in which marijuana use leads to use of harder drugs, by implementing policies to decriminalize the use and sale of small amounts of marijuana. By moving marijuana sales into coffee shops and off the streets, the Netherlands drastically reduced the gateway effect and youth usage.3
“Coffee shops” appeared in Amsterdam in 1976 as a means of separating the market for marijuana from harder drugs, closing the dealers’ “gateway” from marijuana to cocaine and heroin. A 1999 study conducted by the Trimbos Institute found that 20% of Dutch teens aged 15-16 had tried marijuana, and less than one in 1,000 had tried heroin. The same year the European Drug Monitoring Centre found 40 % of teens the same age from Great Britain, which has a similar prohibition policy as the U.S., had tried cannabis, and one in 50 had used heroin.4
In 1994, only 0.3 % of 12- to 17-year-olds in Amsterdam had ever tried cocaine. The rate among American 12- to 17-year-olds was 1.7%, more than 5 times as prevalent.5
The gateway theory that marijuana use leads to use of harder drugs, is a result of prohibition policy rather than the physiological effect of marijuana. Simply put, when youth buy marijuana from black market dealers, the dealers can push harder drugs.
(Link:
http://sensiblecolorado.org/cmi/youth/)
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Research findings on cannabis and MS
Numerous case studies, surveys and double-blind studies have reported improvement in patients treated with cannabinoids for symptoms including spasticity, chronic pain, tremor, sexual dysfunction, bowel and bladder dysfunctions, vision dimness, dysfunctions of walking and balance (ataxia), and memory loss.12-20 Cannabinoids have been shown in animal models to measurably lessen MS symptoms and may also halt the progression of the disease.21
A recent British survey of MS patients found that 43 percent of respondents used cannabis therapeutically. Among them, nearly three quarters said that cannabis mitigated their spasms, and more than half said it alleviated their pain. A survey published in August 2003 in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences reported that 96 percent of Canadian MS patients believe that cannabis is therapeutically useful for treating the disease. Of those who admitted using cannabis medicinally, the majority found it to be beneficial, particularly in the treatment of chronic pain, spasticity, and depression.22 The accompanying editorial states, "This is an exciting time for cannabinoid research. There is a growing amount of data to suggest that cannabis (marijuana) can alleviate symptoms like muscle spasticity and pain in patients with MS."23
(Link:
http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=4558#research)
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