Drug Czar Battles Hordes of Crazed Potheads!

By Silja J.A. Talvi, The Nation. Posted April 18, 2003.

He'll huff, and he'll puff, and he'll blow your house down. He'll act out violently, get your next door neighbor's daughter pregnant, and he may even be supporting terrorism while he's at it.

This imaginary pot smoker composite is drug czar John Walters's big bad wolf, and only a duct-taped cottage window seems to stand in the path of the cannabis-fueled monster that lurks around the corner.

That, and $150 million earmarked in the current fiscal year to further a propagandistic anti-marijuana campaign, courtesy of Walters's Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Full-page advertisements from the ONDCP in national newspapers and magazines (including The Nation) are just the latest gambit aimed at generating a heightened sense of parental anxiety and moral panic, suggesting that aggressive or violent behavior -- and even psychoses -- are among the consequences awaiting young people who try marijuana.

Health consequences for teens who smoke marijuana are, of course, something kids and their parents should talk about openly, but with real facts at hand. Compared to much more common binge drinking -- to say nothing of consequent car accidents, and sexual and physical abuse -- pot smoking should, logically, rank much lower on the list of parental concerns.

Not so, says the drug czar. Parents need to know that they are the "anti-drug" and millions are being spent telling them there's no drug more dangerous to the nation's teenagers than marijuana. And if the parent "fails" to protect society from a pot-smoking teen, then law enforcement is eager to step in, to the tune of nearly 126,000 juvenile arrests for marijuana offenses in 2000 alone. "We have policy on marijuana being made by fanatics and ideologues," says Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, DC. "I think the current campaign is seen as a safe way to fire up their socially conservative base and to squash the movement to rethink our marijuana laws and drug laws in general," adds Mirken. "It's certainly not any sort of a rational attempt to prevent harm to our young people."

For his part, Walters has been busy crisscrossing the nation, trying to extinguish even the slightest moves to alter the nation's draconian drug laws. In Nevada last year, Walters spent months campaigning to help defeat Question 9, which would have legalized and regulated marijuana there. When Nevada's Secretary of State demanded disclosure of the monies spent campaigning against a state initiative -- as required by Nevada law -- Walters and the ONDCP shrugged it off and simply refused to disclose. More recently, Walters and a small cadre of aides paid a well-timed visit to Santa Fe, New Mexico, just days before a medical marijuana initiative was introduced in the state legislature. The drug czar talked about the dangers of marijuana and handed out packets featuring pictures of smiling, drug-free Native American children.

And in Maryland in late March, Walters campaigned in full force, trying to prevent passage of that state's conservatively worded medical marijuana bill. The arguments for medical marijuana, Walters announced, make no more sense than "an argument for medical crack."

It's reefer madness, all over again. In the 1930s, Federal Bureau of Narcotics head Harry Anslinger oversaw a well-timed, post-alcohol prohibition crusade to criminalize and demonize the use of marijuana. Movies of the era, including the cult-classic Reefer Madness, depicted the "demon weed" changing the personalities of high school kids, who after partaking went insane, immersed themselves in "evil" jazz music and then went on murder sprees. Sometimes it seems that Walters is no more sophisticated than his crude 1930s-era counterpart, explains University of Southern California psychology professor Mitch Earleywine.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »