Ask the Drug Czar

Drug Czar John Walters will be hosting Ask the White House this Friday, December 12.
Send in your questions now. Of course, they’re pre-screened and selected and you don’t get a follow-up, so don’t imagine you’re going to nail him with a “gotcha” question, but feel free to give it a try anyway.
Three years ago, he “answered” one of mine.

Pete, from Bloomington, Illinois writes:
Isn’t there a problem with giving kids misleading information regarding marijuana that overstates the actual dangers? I worry that when they find out we’ve been lying to them about marijuana that they’ll stop believing us when it comes to more dangerous drugs. After all, when you call Canadian pot the “crack cocaine of marijuana,” the message kids may hear is that crack must not be too bad.
John Walters
Actually Pete, you‰ve got the question exactly backwards. Marijuana is a much bigger part of the American addiction problem than most people š teens or adults š realize. There are now more teens going into treatment for marijuana dependency than for all other drugs combined. And there are more teens now seeking treatment for marijuana than for alcohol. Today‰s marijuana is also twice as strong as it was in the mid 80‰s. One of the reasons we have such a serious problem with marijuana in our country is because of the misinformation that has been spread about it over the past 30 years š that marijuana is ‹harmlessŠ or a ‹soft drugŠ or a ‹rite of passage.Š These are all myths š and for too many Americans they are costly myths. We need to educate Americans about the real harms of marijuana if we want to sustain the gains we‰ve made over the past three years.
We‰ve recently released a report entitled ‹Marijuana Myths & Facts: The Truth Behind 10 Popular MisperceptionsŠ to help get the facts out about marijuana.