The University's Institute for Social Research reported last December that 11.3 percent of eighth-grade students, 20.4 percent of high school sophomores and 21.9 percent of twelfth-graders said they had smoked pot in the last month. These startling statistics, up from the 1991 report, are worth addressing, but the current anti-drug tactics are unreasonable.
To address local concerns, groups are holding evening forums this month in the Ann Arbor area. However, while the programs are an admirable attempt to reach the public, they may not be enough. The real effort must fortify drug education in schools.
The Clinton Administration, with its $350-million media crusade, also seems to be missing the point. The plan, which divides the cost between the federal government and the private sector, is the only major new anti-drug program contained in the budget proposal recently sent to Congress. Retired General Barry R. McCaffrey, chief of the White House drug office, says, "There is every reason to believe that this absolutely will turn around drug abuse by youngsters." McCaffrey, in his infinite wisdom, is carrying out the campaign for five years admitting: "You can't do it in a year." On that point, McCaffrey is right - but scare-tactic, anti-drug commercials with catch phrases will not erase the drug problem in a year, five years or a decade.
Drug education programs have failed the country in the past, seemingly because of the slippery-slope scare tactics the programs implement. Anti-drug campaigns treat marijuana like any other illicit drug - such as crack or heroin - when nobody has ever died of a marijuana overdose. Children absorb such misinformation. When those who choose to experiment with marijuana realize it is not killing them, they may employ the faulty logic that harder drugs will not harm them either.
Some people blame the rise on recent bills passed in California and Arizona, allowing marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes. Anti-drug advocates claim that advertising marijuana as therapeutic is increasing teen usage. However, agencies gathered the teen-usage statistics before the bills passed. Anti-drug advocates cannot blow a smoke screen around the truth: Marijuana is beneficial to many chronic-disease sufferers.
In this case - and on a larger scale - the truth must be told. The federal government should step up and put their money where it really counts, in drug education programs that advocate the truth about illicit drugs.