These agencies focus primarily on marijuana, a decision many feel is misguided. Although marijuana is both the most readily available and most used drug in the United States, it is also one of the least dangerous.

If used regularly, approximately 27 of 30 days a month, it can permanently damage nerve cells containing dopamine, which regulate feelings of motivation and reward. It can also be addicting and smoking it poses the same cancer risks as smoking cigarettes. However, when used in moderation, the long-term effects of marijuana are negligible. According to a report in The New York Times by Dr. Sally Satel, "Older teenagers who experiment with marijuana generally function as well as nonusers with respect to school and mental well-being."

The federal government chooses to concentrate its efforts on marijuana because of the plant's dubious distinction as a "gateway drug." However, the link between marijuana and other drugs is not direct. This is clear because while most users of harder drugs like heroin and cocaine started out using marijuana, few users of marijuana graduate to hard drugs. Instead, according to researchers at the RAND Corporation, "Marijuana use precedes hard drug use simply because opportunities to use marijuana come earlier in life than opportunities to use hard drugs."

Teenagers who go on to use hard drugs do not do so because of marijuana, they do so because they are predisposed to. According to Satel, while marijuana use before age 15 is a red flag for future drug abuse, so are "truancy, failing in school, fighting, stealing and drinking."

In light of this evidence, it is clear that underlying social ills - not marijuana - are the cause of hard drug abuse. While other government agencies try to fix these, the DEA and its partners should focus their research not on marijuana, but instead on drugs with more damaging effects on society. In fact, in July the National Association of Counties begwwged the White House to "put the same kind of emphasis on methamphetamine abuse as they have in marijuana." State and local officials in the West Coast, the Southwest and the Midwest have been overwhelmed by crime, incarceration and child neglect related to the explosion of methamphetamine, or crystal meth, use in the United States.

Primarily used in rural areas, methamphetamine has been called the new crack and is making its way eastward. Stronger than amphetamine, it is a stimulant that releases high levels of dopamine. Long-term use permanently damages the nerve cells that produce dopamine and eventually effects body movement much like Parkinson's disease. In addition, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), crystal meth "can cause irreversible damage to blood vessels in the brain, producing strokes [and] can result in cardiovascular collapse and death." Although it continues to ravage the western United States, crystal meth is not yet a big threat to the Northeast.

New England has other drugs to worry about. According to the Drug Policy Information Clearinghouse, a division of the ONDCP, "Heroin has surpassed cocaine as the greatest drug threat in Connecticut ... The drug's increasing popularity, especially among younger users, is primarily due to the increased availability of low cost, high purity heroin that can be snorted or smoked instead of injected." Though snorting heroin is perceived as safer than injecting it, it has the same effects. Any ingestion of heroin can result in sudden overdose, collapsed veins, heart infections and liver disease. In addition, it was one of the most-listed drugs in drug-related deaths in 2002. Both heroin and methamphetamine are dangerous, highly addictive drugs much worthier of the government's attentions than marijuana.

It addition to focusing on more damaging drugs, the White House must expand its attention from preventing drug use to helping those already affected by addiction. Because drug abuse alters gene expression and brain circuitry, it changes the user's behavior and functioning, causing a chronic, complex brain disease. There is no single treatment for addiction. Instead, the most effective remedy involves tailoring behavioral therapy and medication use to the individual's needs based on who the person is and the drug or drugs the person uses. Treatment must also address other medical, social or legal needs of the patient.

Recovery is often a long process because addiction is a chronic illness and relapses are common. Comprehensive residential and out-patient programs must be readily available and affordable and include strategies to prevent patients from leaving therapy prematurely.

Drug abuse costs taxpayers billions of dollars in lost productivity and medical costs, not to mention the price of incarceration. It also affects children and families of drug users, spreads infectious disease and leads to crime and homelessness. Comparatively, the cost of addiction treatment is nothing. According to NIDA, "It costs approximately $3,600 per month to leave a drug abuser untreated in the community, and incarceration costs approximately $3,300 per month. In contrast, methadone maintenance therapy costs about $290 per month."

Methadone maintenance therapy, which treats heroin addiction, is one of the most comprehensive and expensive programs, involving long-term residential treatment and medication. Clearly, addiction treatment is a good deal.

The drug prevention efforts of agencies like the ONDCP would be cost-effective too, if only they focused on the right drugs. Moderate recreational use of marijuana is not harmful. It is certainly safer than using either alcohol or smoking cigarettes. The more serious drug problems the United States faces are methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine. The federal government must focus on fighting these drugs to get ahead in the war on drugs or the battle is just a waste of time and money.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.gov
http://www.nida.nih.gov
http://www.drugabuse.gov
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov

Source: Daily Campus, The (UConn, CT Edu)
Author: Emily Groff
Published: September 29, 2005
Copyright: 2005 The Daily Campus
Contact: opinion@dailycampus.com
Website: http://www.dailycampus.com/

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"To cure the junkie and the alcoholic, you must humbly admit that he is a more deeply spiritual person than you, and you accept the cosmic validity of his search to transcend the game, and you help him see that blackout drugs are just bad methodology because you can't keep holding the 'off' switch and that the way to reach the void is through psychedelic rather than anaesthetic experience." [p.37] --"The Seven Tongues of God" [Chapter 1], The Politics of Ecstasy by Timothy Leary, Published by Paladin (London, Great Britain: 1970).

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Most of these costs are costs of prohibition. Incarceration, mandatory treatment, employees fired for testing positive, etc. The costs of drug abuse are strictly limited to the individual and his family and friends, until prohibition gets involved.

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It is clear that this person has no idea what they are talking about in these two sentences. The dopamine comment makes me think that marijuana has been confused with cocaine or amphetamine. Marijuana has NO direct effect on the dopamine system, only the same indirect effect of any pleasurable activity.

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The Reverend Bud Green

• If Cannabis Didn’t Cause Lung Cancer, They Would Tell Us Right?

My experience with drugs as a kid began with candy (which my health conscious parents never let me have so when I would buy some off friends at school and hide it at home, it was very similar to drugs) It also had the same effect. In addition I loved the merry go round because when you get off it, you are kind of drunk and for an 8 year old, its kind of fun. Also used to play this game (kind of dangerous) where you get down on the ground and grab your knees and take 10 deep breaths, then you would stand up and I think squeeze yourself really hard, anyway, it would make you faint. Then there was caffiene, that was a good one. After that i think I tried cigarettes, and then Beer, beer beer beer. Then one nite I was drunk and someone offered me marijuana, (i had already turned it down about 4 times.) He said it would help me drive home so i tried it and it was pretty damn great. And it pretty much made me question every lie i had been told in school about drugs. thats all for my rant. peace Did you guys hear that bill frist is under investigation for insider trading. Perhaps the GOP death rattle is finally sounding. Things can't possibly get worse, but then they do.

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