It’s a gateway drug… it’s incredibly addictive… it’s twice as potent as it was twenty years ago… it can cause madness, blindness, and death… Booga booga! Lock up your daughters! It’s… POT!

Sigh. There’s a lot of Reefer Madness-style disinformation polluting the air these days—much of it dating back to the days of alcohol prohibition—and no matter how often they’re debunked, the myths just won’t go away. But a sane and rational discussion of US drug policy can’t happen until we dispel these myths and start talking truthfully about marijuana. Like adults.

Want to break the Mexican drug cartels? Help alleviate state budget woes? Steer people away from alcohol—a more easily accessible substance that often leads to violence, addiction, and death? Of course you do. We all do. And we can start by facing reality.

Here’s a short list of some of the most common marijuana myths, and the truth behind them. Light up, and enjoy.

The following is an excerpt from Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? by Steve Fox, Paul Armentano, and Mason Tvert. It has been edited for length and adapted for the Web.

The origins of cannabis prohibition were steeped in prejudice, misinformation, and fear mongering. Inflammatory accusations against marijuana and marijuana consumers were typically unsubstantiated, while evidence refuting these claims often went ignored. Troublingly, nearly one hundred years later, little has changed.

Today, the U.S. government and many law enforcement officials continue to justify the need for cannabis prohibition by promoting alarmist myths that distort the truth about marijuana. Some of these distortions, such as the claim that pot smoking is linked to violent and psychotic behavior, date back to the “Reefer Madness” era of the 1930s. Other myths, like the claim that today’s cannabis is highly addictive, are more recent yet equally specious. Nonetheless, this propaganda serves as the basis for the criminal prohibition of marijuana today.

Therefore, what we intend to do in this chapter is to provide you with an advanced course in the truth about marijuana. In the pages that follow, we will dispel some of the more prominent myths about cannabis by providing sound scientific, health, criminal justice, and economic data. We hope that you will keep these facts in mind the next time you hear government officials spreading lies about cannabis.

MYTH: Today’s marijuana is significantly stronger and thus more dangerous than the marijuana of the past.

“We’re no longer talking about the drug of the 1960s and 1970s. This is Pot 2.0.”¹
— John P. Walters, U.S. drug czar (2001–8)

“This ain’t your grandfather’s or your father’s marijuana. This will hurt you. This will addict you. This will kill you.”²
—Mark R. Trouville, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency chief (DEA Miami division)

FACT: The potency of today’s cannabis is only slightly higher, on average, than the pot of twenty or thirty years ago. Marijuana’s increased potency, however, is not associated with increased health risks.

MYTH: Using marijuana will inevitably lead to the use of “harder” drugs like cocaine and heroin.

“Marijuana is a gateway drug. In drug law enforcement, rarely do we meet heroin or cocaine addicts who did not start their drug use with marijuana.”³
—Karen Tandy, U.S. DEA administrator (2005–7)

FACT: The overwhelming majority of marijuana users never try another illicit substance.

MYTH: Marijuana is highly addictive. Millions of Americans seek treatment every year because they become dependent upon marijuana.

“Marijuana is a much bigger part of the American addiction problem than most people … realize. There are now more teens going into treatment for marijuana dependency than for all other drugs combined.”⁴
—John P. Walters, U.S. drug czar (2001–8)

FACT: Marijuana lacks the physical and psychological dependence liability associated with other intoxicants—including tobacco and alcohol. Very few cannabis users voluntarily seek drug treatment for pot “addiction.” The majority of marijuana smokers in drug treatment were arrested for pot possession and ordered into treatment as a condition of their probation.

MYTH: Smoking cannabis is more harmful to health than smoking tobacco and causes lung cancer.

“Someone who smokes marijuana regularly may have many of the same respiratory problems that tobacco smokers do. . . . Marijuana has the potential to promote cancer of the lungs and other parts of the respiratory tract because marijuana smoke contains 50 percent to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than does tobacco smoke.”⁵
—U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration

FACT: Smoking cannabis is not associated with higher incidences of lung cancer or any other types of cancer. Compounds in marijuana may even be protective against the spread of various forms of cancer.

MYTH: Smoking marijuana impairs driving in a manner that is worse than alcohol. Marijuana consumption is responsible for tens of thousands of traffic accidents every year.

“The extent of the problem of marijuana-impaired driving is startling. . . . Marijuana smoking [has] disastrous effect. . . . on driving.”⁶
—Karen Tandy, U.S. DEA administrator (2005–7)

FACT: Marijuana intoxication appears to play, at most, a minor role in traffic injuries.

MYTH: Smoking marijuana causes permanent damage to the brain.

“Long-term effects of using marijuana include ‘burnout. . . . and permanent damage to thinking skills”
—Syndistar/Fox Pro Media antidrug educational pamphlet⁷

FACT: Marijuana use by adults—even long-term, heavy use of the drug—has, at most, only a negligible residual impact on cognition and memory skills.

MYTH: Smoking marijuana is linked to violence and psychotic behavior.

“Boy on Skunk Cannabis Butchered Grandmother”
“Cannabis Drove Brighton Man to Kill Himself”
“Cannabis Users Risk Their Sanity”
—Assorted British tabloid newspaper headlines between 2007–8, as compiled by the authors

FACT: Smoking cannabis does not cause the user to engage in violent or delinquent behavior. Marijuana does not appear to be a cause of mental illness in otherwise healthy individuals.

Notes

1. Reuters News Wire, “U.S. Marijuana Even Stronger Than Before: Report,” April 25, 2007.
2. Associated Press, “Locals Ask State Help to Battle Pot Houses,” June 22, 2007.
3. Karen Tandy, “Marijuana: The Myths Are Killing Us,” Police Chief Magazine (March 2005).
4. Ask the White House, Q&A with John Walters, January 7, 2005; archived at http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2007/10/09/theDrugCzarIsRequiredByLaw.html
5. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA Briefs and Background: Marijuana, http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/marijuana.html (accessed March 5, 2009).
6. Tandy, “Marijuana: The Myths Are Killing Us.”
7. http://www.syndistar.com/product_media/pdfs/pbda113.pdf

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