Parents Position

Drug Watch International
Position Statement

PARENTS

Criminal justice, transportation, and emergency-room studies conclude overwhelmingly that violent episodes, accidents, crime, and other anti-social behaviors among adolescents are often drug related. In the face of widespread drug use among children, Drug Watch International believes that preventing drug use should be the goal of every parent. Parents need to become more informed not only about youth drug use but also about the agenda and strategies of those who would legitimize, legalize, and sell drugs to our children. Well-informed parents can successfully stand against drugs and vigorously counter pro-drug propaganda with facts and caring intervention in the lives of youth. The time has come for parents everywhere to give their full attention to the disintegrating adolescent world.

Background:

Prevention science has tended to focus on the problems of dysfunctional families and has had less to say about how the average family can avoid youth drug use. We know from many studies that parents who state strong opposition to youth drug and alcohol use, and who monitor youth activities to enforce anti-drug rules, decrease the chance of drug use among their children. What these studies don't explain is how the cultural environment has become so toxic, poisoned by the promotion of drugs to youth.

Drug use in the 1960s and 1970s spawned a number of groups of tokers (marijuana smokers) and acid heads (LSD users) who have poured their time and resources into legitimizing and legalizing psychoactive drugs, primarily so that they could use these substances with impunity and social approval. Over the years, the groups that have been in the forefront of the international effort to legalize drugs are the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the Drug Policy Foundation, and The Lindesmith Center.

When their failed policy of out-and-out recreational use of drugs did not gain public approval, pro-legalizers adopted their current plan, which is called "harm reduction," a euphemism for the liberalization of drug policy. Harm reduction is intended to soften attitudes toward the personal use, production, and sales of dangerous mind-altering drugs. It is legalization by the back door. In February 1979, Keith Stroup, then out-going director of NORML, told students at a U.S. university that NORML was trying to get marijuana reclassified medically, particularly for chemotherapy patients. "We'll be using the issue as a red herring to give marijuana a good name."

Substantial funding from multi-millionaire Richard Dennis, international billionaire George Soros, and other wealthy sympathizers has enabled organizations such as The Lindesmith Center, headed by Ethan Nadelmann, and the Drug Policy Foundation to mount expensive marketing campaigns designed to sell pro-drug propaganda to an uninformed and naive public. A major part of these funds has been used to change the image and mask the agenda of the pro-legalization movement. Slick advertising and polished speakers representing the legalizers convey a plethora of messages designed to make drug legalization sound logical, reasonable, and inevitable, even though it is none of these.

A recent study reveals that roughly one fifth of popular songs contain references to illicit drugs, and illicit drugs appear in 22 percent of movies. The entertainment industry reflects an obsession with drugs. Many believe these drug messages increase youth drug use, because in many cases drug use is celebrated. Both radio and television have aired programs written to influence public opinion in favor of illicit drug use. Magazines and newspapers have given all too much credibility to pro-drug propaganda. Pro-drug advocates have been advisors to federal governments regarding drug policy. Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders is but one of a number of influential public officials who have made statements in favor of some form of drug legalization.

Rationale:

The harm reductionists rationalize their position by telling themselves and a trusting public that there is a crying need for medicinal marijuana, "industrial" marijuana hemp, needle giveaways, and drug law reform, despite the lack of scientific research to support these notions.

Few parents realize that THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana (the drug that produces marijuana's "high"), is already available in pill form by prescription under the brand name Marinol. However, Marinol has far more negative side effects than other available medicines and is usually the medicine of last choice by physicians. Marijuana is a weed containing more than 450 different compounds; marijuana should not be confused with THC. Smoking toxic, carcinogen-laden marijuana cigarettes has repeatedly been rejected as medicine, most recently in the 1999 Institute of Medicine Report.

Harm reductionists tout "industrial" marijuana hemp as nature's answer to rope, paper, clothing, and good skin care; they allege it will save the family farm and the rain forests. These claims are false and rival the hype of 19th-century snake-oil salesmen. Leaders of the pro-drug movement have stated that "the way to legalize marijuana is to sell marijuana legally," believing that if they can get marijuana hemp products in stores, legalization of marijuana will soon follow.

Needle Exchange Programs (needle giveaways, known as NEPs) are another strategy to facilitate drug use by giving clean needles to injecting drug users, thus endangering the user as well as society. Advocates of NEPs falsely claim that free needles are necessary to curb the spread of AIDS. However, there is no valid scientific evidence that providing needles has resulted in the lowering of HIV/AIDS rates. There is, in fact, mounting evidence that NEPs significantly increase the risk of both hepatitis B and C. Drug trafficking, drug abuse, crime, and public squalor in the areas where NEPs are located magnify the underlying destructive activity of intravenous drug use.

Harm reductionists claim that non-violent first time drug offenders are arrested and locked up indefinitely. However, a study of 22,000 people in the New York prison system gives a different picture. Eighty-seven percent were traffickers, in for selling drugs, in many cases by the ton. The vast majority of the remaining 13 percent were arrested for dealing drugs, but their lawyers plea-bargained their convictions down to possession.

Today's parents live in a time when society turns its head, and drug peddlers and drug sympathizers openly market drugs and drug-theme movies, music, clothing, jewelry, and posters to children. Parents are the primary influence on their children and must be proactive by giving a strong, unequivocal "No Drug Use" message to their children and grandchildren. In their own families and through local, state, and national parent networks, parents can, and should:

1. Be prepared to counter the drug culture's claims and expose its true agenda when their children parrot the legalizers' arguments. A visit to Drug Watch International's Web site at www.drugwatch.org can give insight as to why marijuana is not harmless, why smoked marijuana should not be legalized as medicine, why hemp is unnecessary, why needle exchange doesn't work, and why decriminalization spreads drug use.

2. Avoid denial and be vigilant. Understand that ALL children are at risk. Since 1992, drug use among U.S. 12-17 year-olds has doubled. A recent study reveals that drug use is the No. 1 concern of youth in the United States. Should it not also be the primary concern of parents? Study the harm done by specific drugs, and learn the signs of use. Realize that local libraries and the Internet do not differentiate between accurate and inaccurate, outdated, or contrived pro-drug information.

3. Send a clear no-use zero-tolerance message to their children, and discuss the pitfalls of drug use with them. If a child comes home drunk or stoned, parents must impose a serious consequence. Grounding and loss of telephone privileges make an impression on adolescents. If it happens more than once, drug testing and counseling should be considered.

4. Make their children accountable for money given to them. Parents have unwittingly supported their children's drug habits by not paying attention to where the money they give their children is going.

5. Monitor and screen their children's friends, music, television, movie, and Internet activity. Many movies, songs, and celebrities celebrate drug use and other anti-social behaviors. Know what their children are being exposed to. Watch for clothing and jewelry with drug symbols.

6. Be proactive in their community. Join the local prevention council or, if there isn't one, start one. Through it, create a newsletter for parents alerting them to drug culture issues. Organize wholesome activities for young people. Become familiar with drug education in local schools, and be sure their children are getting a clear no-use message at school.

7. Become an advocate at all governmental levels. If anyone proposes pro-marijuana legislation or attempts to decriminalize drugs, contact elected officials and urge them to defeat the bill. Write or call legislators, and urge them to be advocates for a serious effort to stop drug trafficking and to increase funding for prevention efforts. Encourage like-minded parents to join in this effort.

8. Vote. And get friends to vote for candidates willing to a stand against illicit drugs.

The drug culture's messages about marijuana and other drug use are flawed, and its products imperil our youth. Drugs and the drug-culture propaganda are seductive, but parents who learn the facts and commit themselves to protecting their children can be effective in keeping drugs out of their communities, schools, and homes. From 1980 to 1992, drug use was cut in half in the United States by a well-orchestrated national campaign to reduce demand, reaching from national leaders to private citizens, and especially encompassing parents. A similar approach can be successful again.

References: Parents

* Arizonans for Drug Policy Reform, Campaign Finance Report, January 1, 1996 - May 31, 1996.

* The Best of High Times, 3/90.

* Bruneau J et al, "High rates of HIV infection among injection drug users participating in needle exchange programs in Montreal: results of a cohort study. Am J Epidemiol 1997; 146 (12):994-1002.

* Chilcoat and Anthony, 1996. Jackson, 1997. McDermott, 1984.

* Families In Action, Number two/three, June/September 1980.

* Hagan et al, "Syringe Exchange and Risk of Infection with Hepatitis B and C Viruses," American Journal of Epidemiology, 1999; 149:203-13.

* Harvard, U. of Maryland, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Survey, "98/Dream," 9-98. [#1 concern].

* Institute of Medicine Report, 1999.

* The Lancet, Vol. 348, 8/3/96.

* Matthew Cheng and Alex Shum, importers of hemp fabric, as reported in High Times, "Hemp Clothing Is Here!," March 1990.

* National Institute of Justice, Annual Report.

* National Institute of Drug Abuse Annual Statistics.

* National Transportation Safety Board - accidents data.

* ONDCP and the Dept. of HHS; "Substance Use in Popular Movies and Music, Executive Summary; Roberts, Henriksen et al, 1999.

* "The Public Health Impact of Needle Exchange Programs in the U.S. and Abroad," op cit.

* Ross SA, Elsohly MA. Constituents of Cannabis Sativa L. XXVIII. A review of the natural constituents: 1980 - 1994. J. Pharm Science. 1995 #4:1-10.

* Wall Street Journal, Decriminalization: 5/24/99, p.30A.

* Weibel W et al, Presented at the Ninth International Conference on AIDS, Abstract WSC 152, 1993 Romano N. et al, American Journal of Epidemiology, 135:1189-1196, 1992.

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