The United States government has kept drug use, especially marijuana, a large priority for most of the last century, and has gone to extensive efforts to curb marijuana use. Since the 1950s, much of the American public has been critical of U.S. policies towards marijuana due to the questionability of the information the government provides on the subject, and the lack of sufficient evidence proving the drug to be harmful. After a brief history that should explain how the U.S.' stance on marijuana got to where it is today, there will be an explanation of some of the government's anti-marijuana programs and campaigns as well as a critical look at them and some of the criticism they have received from the American public.
The radicalism and hysteria surrounding marijuana brought about by Drug Czar Henry Anslinger continued for the next two decades. As in the 1930s, very little research was done on the subject in the early 1950s, and yet this was also the period of the harshest punishments on users of the drug the United States has ever seen. The Boggs Act of 1951 is the most obvious of this punitive approach. Marijuana was lumped with drugs like cocaine and heroin, and punishments for offenders were identical for all three. Mandatory sentences were imposed, and one would receive two to five years in prison and a $2000 fine for a first time possession offense. In the next five years, twenty-six states passed legislation raising penalties for marijuana offenders.
As with all public policies, these regulations did not go unquestioned, and this also marked the beginning of scientific research on the drug. A study by Dr. Harry Isbell [10] found the first hard evidence against what the government was claiming. Isbell found that not only was the drug not addictive, he saw no link between the drug and violence. The American Medical Association and the American Bar Association became two of the biggest advocates for a change in the laws, which eventually resulted in the relaxed laws of the 1960s. After other studies began coming to similar conclusions, the U.S. government changed their stance from focusing on the health risks of smoking marijuana to the belief that the drug was a stepping stone to worse things.
The beginning of the Nixon presidency in 1969 is where many people mark the beginning of the modern-day "War on Drugs."[11] Although this term is incorrect because a war typically involves armed combat between two nation-states, this has nevertheless become the term used to describe the United States' prohibition campaign of the last forty years. I will therefore refer to it from here on out as a campaign rather than a war. Nixon started this campaign in 1971 when he declared drugs to be America's number one enemy, and formed the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) two years later. Although the DEA is not my main focus due to their concern with drugs on a national and interstate level, it is worth noting that they consider cannabis a "Schedule I" drug.[12] This means they believe it has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use, and no accepted level of safety as to the use of the drug. Its placement in this category is of much scrutiny.
The main goals of the ONDCP are to establish policies and priorities to reduce and eventually eradicate illegal drug use, drug related crimes, and drug manufacturing and trafficking in the United States.[4] The ONDCP has a three-part policy on drugs: stopping use before it starts, healing drug users, and disrupting drug markets.[4] Though this is a balanced policy, the part that concerns the American public most directly is the first, so that will be our focus. While much of this part is made up of drug education and community action, the ONDCP also concentrates on dissuading people from using drugs by establishing drug testing programs for schools and the workplace, and directs most of its energy towards America’s youth.
One of the ONDCP’s largest programs is The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. The part of this campaign dedicated to marijuana is called the Marijuana Prevention Initiative. Of all drugs, marijuana is the most prevalent in the U.S. so most ONDCP policies and campaigns concentrate on it. The website for The Anti-Drug, an ONDCP-sponsored media campaign claimed that of kids that use drugs, 60% use marijuana only.[3] If we can assume that this statistic is at least somewhat accurate, it becomes clear why there is such a large focus here.
The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign sponsors several smaller campaigns (The Anti-Drug, Above the Influence, etc) that give the same basic message. The campaign websites generally contain the same basic information (fact sheets about marijuana use and risks, and assistance to parents who need to talk to their children about drugs), and most campaigns run television commercials that put marijuana in a bad light.
Naturally, these campaigns have flaws and are not without critics. One large problem with these campaigns is that the information they give is not very useful, and often too vague. The Above the Influence website states "Pot affects a user’s judgment, motor coordination, and short-term memory." [1]In essence, this really doesn’t tell you anything. Much of the information concentrates on how many youths are using marijuana, and that the number is growing. One might argue that this is used as a scare tactic. Parents see this and it makes them worry that their child will soon become a drug user. However, if there is not sufficient evidence that marijuana is harmful to accompany this, the number of users is irrelevant. Most of the information sheets on the websites have little or no statistics, and the statistics offered are generally correlations between variables that are of little relevance.
For example, the website for Above the Influence also states that “Research found that students with an average grade of ‘D’ or below were more than four times as likely to have used marijuana in the past year as students who reported an average grade of ‘A.’[1]” An important part of analyzing statistics is something called omitted variable bias. At first this seems to be an obvious indicator that marijuana lowers a student’s GPA, but this is very misleading. When looking at the correlation of two variables (average grade and marijuana use), sometimes one will forget or neglect to include a variable that skews the data and exaggerates claims. It could be possible that kids with a "D" average typically come from less privileged families than "A" students, and thus live in poorer and more dangerous neighborhoods. Children in these neighborhoods would likely be more exposed to drug use, and drugs might be more available to them. This is not to say that there is no correlation between these two variables, but ignoring other factors leads to false claims, and any credible econometrician or statistician would agree that that statistic is not as significant as the ONDCP would have you believe.
Many people have problems with the commercials put out by Above the Influence, and they are often considered to be propaganda rather than legitimate ads. Furthermore, the ideas these commercials suggest to the viewer often have nothing to do with any of the facts or statistics on the website. One such ad that is a good example of this is called "Pete’s Couch.[8]" The speaker in the ad states that he tried smoking pot and nothing bad happened, but he sat on his friend Pete's couch for 11 hours and did nothing productive. He later implies that choosing to smoke marijuana and leading a productive exciting life are mutually exclusive. The first problem is the fact that studies have proven that a high from marijuana fades after several hours. If he smoked several times, that is a completely different situation. Next, there are no studies that show statistically significant evidence that marijuana use leads to a decrease in ambition or productivity. If there were, that information would likely be found on the websites of the campaign rather than the misleading statistics they do give. If there is no evidence to support these types of claims, then the ONDCP is more or less releasing misinformation.
However, the information (or lack thereof) included in these commercials is not the only part about them that people have problems with. In 2006, the ONDCP began posting their commercials on www.youtube.com. After people saw them, many posted comments, some of which pointed out inaccuracies and misleading statements similar to the ones I’ve mentioned above. In response, the ONDCP disabled the ability to rate or comment on any of these videos. Sending these types of messages while silencing anyone who disagrees with them seems rather despotic, especially when the site emphasizes individuality and has the motto "Broadcast Yourself." In response, many people have posted their own videos denouncing the credibility of the ONDCP, and thousands of video responses and parodies of ONDCP commercials can now be found on the website. One person taking their dissatisfaction to the next level is John Holowach, a man working on a documentary entitled High: The Truth About American Marijuana that is expected to be released in 2008.[9] His goal is to expose the U.S. government’s flaws in dealing with the marijuana issue, and make more people aware of them.
Much of what the ONDCP does and has done in the past and is still doing today is not the typical behavior of a democracy. If the American government were more honest about marijuana, they would likely reach more people and these campaigns would be more effective. As mentioned earlier, calling this a "War on Drugs" would be incorrect and if anything, it is more of a war on the American people. More people are learning that the ONDCP can’t back up their claims. Most Americans are already suspicious of the government in general, and violating the trust of the general population will do nothing more in the long run than damage the government’s credibility further.
It can not be stressed enough that I am not advocating the use of marijuana. In addition, I am in no way saying that marijuana is harmless and does not have the effects that the ONDCP says it does. I am simply expressing that the government needs to change its approach on the matter, and conduct better research. It is indeed possible that marijuana is damaging to ones health, grades, and general well being. However, to make numerous websites with “fact sheets” and advertisements that make claims based on faulty evidence or no evidence at all is unwise. Legitimacy is of course important on an international level, but if too many Americans lose faith in our government and it loses its legitimacy on a domestic scale, that could have far more severe implications to this country than drug use.
by Robert Springer
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Sources
1. Above the Influence Homepage
Ronald Reagan was the next U.S. President to leave a lasting impact on drug use (especially marijuana) in America. In 1988, Reagan established the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and made it a part of the Executive Office of the President while First Lady Nancy Reagan promoted her famous “Just Say No” campaign.[11] The "Just Say No" campaign has evolved from teaching children and young adults to say no to drugs, to encouraging abstinence, and saying no to violence and other dangers that people can encounter in their youth. Meanwhile, the ONDCP remains the core of the U.S. Government"s campaign on drugs.
2. National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign Homepage
3. The Anti Drug Campaign's Homepage
4. The ONDCP Home Page
5. The Marijuana Prevention Initiative
6. ONDCP Advertisement: Pete's Couch
7. ONDCP Advertisement: The Transformation
8. Response to Pete's Couch
9. High (First 13 Minutes of the Documentary)
10. The History of Cannabis Prohibition, 1937 - 1962
11. History of the War on Drugs
12. DEA Drug Scheduling
