Drug Watch International

“Prevention First”
The primary emphasis for every community

Sandra S. Bennett, President
Drug Watch International
Presentation to the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro
September 10, 1999

Good morning!

It is wonderful to be here in Rio de Janeiro, a city said to be not only the most beautiful city in the world, but populated by some of the world’s most beautiful people as well. Thank you, Mayor Conde, for inviting me to speak to your city about drug prevention. It is truly a privilege and an honor to be here. 

I must tell you that we, in Drug Watch International, are all a little over-awed at your incredible enthusiasm and the scope of the programs you have implemented in such a short time.  It is nothing short of miraculous.  For those of us who have been battling the menace of drugs for the past two decades, you reinvigorate us and reassure us that there are still sensible, reasonable people in the western hemisphere who know that a weak and permissive drug policy is the slippery slope that leads to increased use, and the specter of a society racing to hasten its own destruction.

I want to extend special appreciation to Professor Mina Seinfeld de Carakushansky, Head of Mayor Conde’s Drug Prevention Bureau, who has been an incredible emissary to Drug Watch International from Brazil, providing us with continual updates of the many programs your city has inaugurated.  This information is forwarded to prevention groups and government agencies all over the world as an example of what a city can do when it decides to take a firm stand against the use of these dangerous and debilitating substances.  Thank you all again for your outstanding efforts.

I'm here today with my husband, William M. Bennett, a physician, who has been invited to speak at a medical conference in Campinas later in the week.  We have worked together in drug prevention education since discovering that the death of our oldest son, a student at our state university, was due to cocaine.  There is nothing so tragic as losing a child, and nothing more shocking than finding that the death of that child, who was happy, handsome, extremely bright, athletic, who never smoked and was known to dislike alcohol, was caused by an illegal psychoactive and addictive drug.

We live in that area of the United States known as the Pacific Northwest, which includes the two states of Oregon and Washington.  It’s the home of three gigantic international companies, Nike, Intel and Microsoft, which have made many young people into millionaires, with a lot of disposable income.  The Pacific Northwest is also home to many of the "extreme sports," activities engaged in by people with a great deal of money and free time, and who are looking for thrills.  It all contributes to a milieu in which drug use flourishes. 

Oregon was the first state to decriminalize marijuana.  That meant that a person could have up to an ounce of marijuana (about 32 joints) and receive nothing more than a very small fine.  The state of Alaska quickly followed Oregon's lead but incredibly decriminalized possession of up to four ounces.  When you’re talking about four ounces of marijuana, you’re talking about enough to open a small store.

It wasn't long before marijuana use spread from college students to high school and middle school children, and Oregon students quickly ended up smoking more marijuana than anywhere else in the country.  Of course, when Alaska became even more permissive, marijuana smoking by it young people quickly surpassed that of Oregon Students.  Three years ago Alaskan citizens recriminalized possession of marijuana to try and put a stop to the destruction this drug was causing.

Since the 1960's and 70's when marijuana smoking was the mode of the day, the profile of marijuana has changed significantly.  In the hippy era, marijuana was mostly that found growing wild as a weed in rural areas of the country where, until the 1930’s it had been grown for its fiber.  The percentage of THC, the major psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, found in the wild plant, (referred to as ditch weed) was typically less than 1.5%, certainly strong enough to get anyone high who smoked it.  Over the ensuing years the plant has been hybridized, particularly in the Netherlands and Hawaii, and today some marijuana plants are purported to contain up to 40% THC. That is almost 25 times stronger that what the baby boomers were using.  To put this in perspective, can you imagine that there is no difference between taking one aspirin and 30?  Or putting a teaspoon of salt into something you are cooking as opposed to more than half a cup?

A recent study of treatment center admissions found that admissions for marijuana addiction had more than doubled, increasing from 6% of the total in 1992 to 15% of the total in 1997.  During that same time admissions for heroin addiction had increased by about a third and represented 15.7% of the total, slightly more than marijuana, while admissions for cocaine had dropped to 15%.  Meanwhile more and more scientific studies are showing that there are numerous dangerous and long-term consequences to smoking marijuana, not the least of which is that it often leads to the use of other drugs.

And speaking of treatment, if the emphasis on communicable diseases like small pox, polio, diphtheria, typhus, had been on treatment, we would never have virtually eradicated this horrible diseases.  Fortunately, emphasis was on preventing the diseases from happening in the first place.  That did not mean no care was provided care for the afflicted.  It simply meant that our major thrust was on preventing the scourge from happening and from spreading to others.  Of course someone who is sick, injured or wounded, self-inflicted or not, needs medical attention.  But to make treatment a priority to prevention is like believing you can win a battle by treating the wounded.

Additionally, treatment has a poor success rate.  A tragic example is that of a 35-year-old neurosurgeon in Oregon.  This young physician, with a promising career, became a heroin addict.  After failing treatment a third time, he committed suicide.  His father, also a physician, is dying of lung cancer and has bequeathed his $3 million estate to providing treatment for other addicts.  While all of us would want treatment for an addicted loved one, it would be far better if they had they never used drugs in the first place.  And that is called prevention.

Those who use psychoactive and addictive drugs do so because they like the high associated with drug use, and they are often poly-drug users, ingesting whatever it takes to get the thrill they want.  A few years ago a dangerous game called “fruit bowl” was popular with U.S. high school students.  They would raid the family's medicine cabinet, grabbing whatever was on the shelf, including prescription drugs, pour all the capsules and tablets into a large bowl, grab a handful and then swallow them down.  One day, at our local high school, eight girls, all popular students from good homes, engaged in this terrifying behavior, resulting in all being hospitalized and one permanently damaged.

We must get over thinking that because our children are well brought up, intelligent, healthy, handsome, loving, and well provided for, that they are safe from drugs.  A wonderful educator from our part of the United States, Dr. Gary Fields, once said, “There are two kinds of children who use drugs – boys and girls.”  And regardless of how good a parent you are, and what a wonderful environment you raise your children in, they likely will be exposed to illicit drugs.  

About six months after our son died a friend told me that her nephew, a 28-year old young man had been found dead in his home.  She said it appeared to have been a heart attack.  I asked if it might have involved cocaine.  She was indignant and pointed out to me that this young man was very involved in his church and even taught Sunday school. I called her sister to offer my condolences and in the course of the conversation the bereaved parent told me that the night her son died he had gone to a pre-wedding party for a friend and had been pressed into trying cocaine. Shortly after returning home he had died of cocaine-induced cardiac arrest.  Neither this young man nor our son were aware of the terrible dangers inherent in cocaine use, nor were their parents informed enough to warn them.

It is imperative that adults learn the pharmacological aspects of the street drugs that their children are going to be exposed to so that they can pass that information on to them.  While there is NO way that we will stop all substance abuse, any more than we can stop all crime or all violence, making sure our children know about the dangers is an effective way to lessen the chances that they will experiment with these substances.

In our son’s case, though we had told all our children that we would not tolerate the use of marijuana, tobacco, it never occurred to us to mention other drugs.  At the time of our son’s death, unknown to us, cocaine use was being touted at government levels, and by pot-smoking medical professionals such as Lester Grinspoon, a Harvard psychiatrist, as being harmless if used in moderation, and not addictive.  Grinspoon is still espousing that notion despite numerous scientific papers illustrating that cocaine is highly addictive and that even a small amount can trigger a fatal cardiac event.  It is interesting to note that Grinspoon is one of the leading voices behind the movement to legalize crude of marijuana for medicinal use. He and other drug-using intellectuals, posing as compassionate, caring, drug policy reformers or harm reductionists, have but one true agenda, and that is making it legal for them to have access to psychoactive and addictive drugs so they can get high and alter their consciousness, or simply feed their addictions. 

This same group advocates the use, for recreational and relaxation purposes, of the drug MDMA, called XTC or ecstasy.  This drug is used at parties known as RAVES, where party-goers use MDMA and other club drugs to enhance their libido and enable them to dance all night (with total disregard for the physical damage that over-exertion can do).  Irreparable brain damage and many deaths have been associated with the use of this MDMA, yet the legalizers continue to promote RAVES and MDMA use to our children.

What we must impress upon our young people is why these drugs are illegal.  And you cannot do that if you, yourself, are not better informed.  The truth about drugs is very scary.  The legalizers like to belittle the truth, calling it “scare tactics.”  When legalizers talk to someone about the dangers of AIDS they never use this demeaning description.  To the legalizers, anything that does not paint drug use as fun and safe, is deemed a “scare tactic.”  Call it what they will, telling the scary facts about drugs to your children is effective prevention.

During the drug epidemic of the 1920’s my father’s cousin died of a drug overdose. Consequently from my earliest memories I can recall my parents telling me to NEVER take candy from a stranger because it could contain dope, and dope could addle your brain and make you the slave of the person who gave it to you.  This was certainly enough to frighten me.  My mother also cautioned us NEVER, NEVER to take a deep sniff of some unknown substance because, she said evaporating poisons could kill you.  She reminded us that deaths related to fires are usually caused by the smoke, not the flames, and that smoke is very, very dangerous.  By the time I was three years old these admonitions were deeply imprinted in my mind and though I might drink out of a filthy mud puddle if I was thirsty, or pull tar from the street and chew it, I would NEVER take candy from a stranger unless my mother said it was okay.   It is simply never to early to start talking to children, about drugs and other dangers such as child molesters, most of whom are substance abusers and who often use drugs and alcohol to seduce older children.

Let me tell you about a child molester who lived in our area.  He had killed three children and Law Enforcement had absolutely no clues.  Then, he tried to grab a four year old from a movie theater restroom.  The child screamed and carried on and the molester was caught before he could drop the child and run off. During the investigation the police found hundreds of photos of his murder victims, boxes of child pornography and, of course, the ever present drugs.  The criminal later confessed to molesting over 300 children – However, this was the first time he had ever been caught.  Had it not been that the four-year-old child had been taught by his parents to scream to let people know that he was being held against his will, perhaps this monster would never have been captured.  So it is never too early to start teaching children about these very dangerous and scary things.

This brings up another claim often heard by those wanting to legalize drugs, and that is that our prisons are full of first-time drug offenders.  The spin given by the media and the legalizers is that most of those in prison are there for smoking one joint.  The truth, according to statistics from the Department of Justice is that less than 3% of prisoners are incarcerated for drug crimes and the average amount of those in federal prison for marijuana possession is 3-1/2 tons.  Now this may be a first time offender, but like the child molester, it is simply the first time the drug offender has been caught. 

You may have heard that violent crime has fallen significantly in the U.S.  There can be no doubt that this is because of tougher laws for criminal behavior.  First, it removes criminals from the streets, and secondly it acts as a deterrent to crime.  It does not take rocket science to figure this out.  Any teacher can tell you that if a disruptive child in a classroom is not curtailed, the rest of the class will begin to act up.  And so it is with those who break the law.  When laws are not enforced they are ignored.  To make drug policy work, drug laws must be uniformly enforced and judges who do not or will not abide by the laws should be removed from the bench. Fear of the consequences is a good deterrent for most bad behavior.

Speaking of scary things, there is a magazine in the U.S. devoted to those who like to use illicit drugs, particularly marijuana, and it is called High Times.  It advocates all sorts of illegal behavior and all sorts of things to facilitate illegal behavior, including how to grow marijuana, how to hide the growing of marijuana, how to market marijuana, how to mask the use of marijuana, and more.

Letters written to the magazine are answered by Ed Rosenthal, a long-time legalization advocate who now promotes legalization under the guise of industrialization of cannabis hemp.  In view of claims by the legalizers that crude marijuana is necessary to relieve the nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy, one letter to High Times was particularly notable.  Signed by Doper Professor, it stated that this pot smoker and his wife had visited Amsterdam and in one of the many pot-shops had purchased and eaten something called space cakes, a sweet laced with marijuana or hashish.  The Doper professor lamented that they had become higher than they had ever been before, and then suffered from nausea, vomiting, disorientation, heart palpitations, and anxiety, and thought they were going to die.  They finally convinced the concierge to get a doctor who begrudgingly gave them Valium to bring them down.  They were very frightened and wondered what had happened.  Rosenthal told them that this sort of reaction was common even in experienced marijuana users.  It’s hard to believe that this is what the legalizers are suggesting be used by those undergoing chemotherapy.

In the 1800’s and into the early part of this century there was no control over medical remedies in the U.S.  There were patent medicines - concoctions that had been patented and for which all sorts of medical claims were made, but none of these had been subjected to scientific scrutiny.  In fact, many of them contained addictive substances that masked the patient’s symptoms and made them think they were better, while all the time the disease was ravaging them, unchecked.

During this era cocaine, heroin and opium were used in over-the-counter remedies for everything from toothache to sore throats.  Snake oil salesmen, using entertaining sideshows to sell highly addictive cure-all remedies, were part of the American scene.  All that changed in 1906 with the Pure Food and Drug Act, which required foods and medicines to be pure, and all contents to be listed.  This Act was modified in 1938 when legislation was passed establishing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and requiring medicines to be SAFE.   By 1962, prescription medicines had to be both SAFE and EFFECTIVE, and the FDA was responsible for establishing and overseeing the testing criteria. 

These standards have protected the American population from some very dangerous drugs, yet despite rigorous testing a few very bad ones have managed to slip through causing much harm.  The FDA does not decide on what drugs are effective and safe by POLLING the public, or asking talk show hosts for their opinions.  It has a very specific set of scientific criteria, which are applied to all applications for new drugs.  One of the criteria was that it had to be accepted by a significant number of physicians.

In 1990 the fellow who heads the group promoting MDMA and RAVES, a Harvard graduate student who publicly stated he used illicit drugs, put together a little study designed to show that doctors did, in fact endorse smoking marijuana as a treatment for cancer and AIDS patients. Newspapers around the world, using the spin put on it by the Harvard news service, reported that 44% of oncologist supported the use of smoked pot in a medical setting. Had the media bothered to look at the study instead of simply reiterating the Harvard hype, they would have found that the poorly designed questionnaire went to only a small portion of U. S. oncologists and less than half of that number bothered to respond.  Of those who did bother to return the questionnaire, less than half had ever suggested to a patient that they try marijuana, and only 121of those felt that marijuana was better than THC pills which are available by prescription.  This number is less than 5% of those surveyed and only 1% of the total number of oncologists in the U.S. – a far cry from the 40 to 70% figure used in newspaper stories.

As a youngster I recall how horrified and angry Americans were during the cold war era to learn the major Russian newspaper, Pravda, manipulated, censored, and suppressed information in its news stories.  Yet today, that is exactly the direction many newspapers throughout the world have taken, particularly with regard to stories about drugs.    For instance, the results of thousands of studies on marijuana are virtually unknown to the general public, who has been lead to believe, by unscrupulous or ignorant journalists, that no research has been done, and further that it has not been done because it has been blocked.  Both these notions are blatantly false.  More than 12,500 studies on marijuana have been published to date, most of them in the past 20 years, and the majority of them reflect the insidiously dangerous nature of this substance.

American newspapers point to the horrors of cocaine and heroin addiction but sympathize with those who advocate establishing “safe rooms” where addicts can go to shoot up with free needles, free drugs, and free medical attention should they overdose.  However, stories related to the harm caused by marijuana, if reported at all, are relegated to small print and buried in the back pages, while purported benefits are inflated.  In fact, a review of medical literature has shown no effective use of marijuana for any medical indication for which a better and safer pharmaceutical drug does not exit.

Media coverage of prevention efforts is almost non-existent and is deliberately suppressed.  For example, the annual prevention conference put on by PRIDE International draws 10 to 20 thousand participants each year from all over the world.  I have never seen any media coverage of this event, though small conference put together by the legalizers are frequently covered.  Another example is the annual Say No to Drugs Walk in Portland, Oregon.  Sponsored primarily by parent and community prevention groups the march grew to include 20,000 youngsters, numerous bands and entertainers, and participation by various branches of the U. S. Military and Coast Guard.  Nevertheless, the media refused to give this wonderful effort any coverage except one small photo. 

The most conspicuous example of how the media manipulates, suppresses and censors information, however, is with its persistence in ignoring the results of scientific research on marijuana.  Out of frustration and anger, Louise Perkins a Canadian woman whose family was severely impacted by drug use, decided to put together a bibliography of the marijuana research, categorized by side effects. That document is available for anyone who wants to learn more about how dangerous this drug really is – information you are never going to see in the newspapers.

Unfortunately, the pharmacology of illicit drugs, other than how to treat an overdose, is not taught in most medical schools.  The vast majority of physicians, other than possibly those who work in treatment or those who are advocates for legalization of drugs, know no more about the dangers of these substances than your children do.

Physicians want to be known as caring and compassionate, and this desire, coupled with the challenge by the drug culture that only those who advocate smoked marijuana for the sick and dying are compassionate, has lead some otherwise careful and dedicated physicians to supporting this notion. 

There is a movement, too, to believe that “natural” herbal remedies are safer, healthier, and more effective than pharmaceuticals.  The multi-billion dollar herbal remedy industry is completely unregulated and capitalizes on the public’s misconceptions, distrust of government agencies, and search for a magic bullet, a miracle cure-all that will assuage every ailment. While it is true that many plants, animals, and minerals have medicinal properties, that fact does not translate into them being safe or effective for medicinal use in their crude form.  Curare a deadly poison, is extracted from frogs; lethal snake venom can be used to prevent clotting; digitalis, a drug used to treat heart disease is derived from the extremely toxic foxglove plant; and one of the most widely used estrogen replacement hormones is made from the urine of pregnant horses. 

Scientific research is what has brought us from the dark ages, where few lived beyond the age of 45, to the new millennium where the fastest growing segment of society are those in their 80’s.  Most of this advancement can be attributed to scientific research that has given us better food, better hygiene, better medicine and better medical care.  Now, as we move into the 21^st century we should not be looking backward and casting aside the incredible progress that has been made, but we should be capitalizing on all these wonderful scientific advancements and developing even better, safer and more effective methods for treating the ailments and frailties of mankind. 

True, scientific facts change from generation to generation, but they change based on new scientific discoveries, not because of political persuasions or popular votes.  Do not let the clamoring of media rhetoric or the drug policy reformers replace the facts about drugs.  Psychoactive and addictive drugs are destructive to mankind at every level, and the goal of society should be prevention, with emphasis on curtailing manufacture, acceptance, access and use of these substances.

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