And that has ignited a debate about whether America's most commonly used illict drug, a substance tried by an increasingly younger audience, has grown more dangerous.

Public safety and health experts worry that many of the Bay Staters who voted two weeks ago in a nonbinding referendum to decriminalize pot were unaware of the drug's dramatic change and its potential to harm unsuspecting new users, particularly teens.

``I am sure voters are reaching back to the 1970s and saying, `Weed, it wasn't that bad.' But things are different,'' said state police Sgt. Alan Zani, a narcotics officer in the Essex County District Attorney's Office.

Zani said he has been seizing marijuana that informants who are longtime pot smokers say is knocking them for a loop.

But referendum supporters, who are pushing for pot possession to be treated more like a traffic ticket than a criminal offense, say the potency issue is a scare tactic.

They point to a recent study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse which shows the percentage of high schoolers who reported getting ``very high'' from pot declined during the 1980s, while pot potency started to rise. They say this proves that kids figured out how to adjust their doses of the stronger stuff.

However, the same study notes that the proportion of high schoolers reporting ``very high'' highs started to climb again in the 1990s and has held steady through 2001.

``While (marijuana) is not the right thing for everybody, the level of harm it generates is so far below the harms we tolerate from alcohol and tobacco,'' said Michael Cutler, an attorney and co-founder of the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts, a privately funded marijuana-decriminalization group.

``If you fear the new marijuana because it is so much more powerful,'' Cutler said, ``all the more reason to regulate it, control it and tax it.''

What has changed in marijuana is the percentage of the mind-altering chemical, known as THC. Technological advances, particularly in indoor-growing operations, have allowed growers to create plants with significantly higher THC levels.

Federal data show THC levels have risen from an average of between 1 and 2 percent in the 1970s to an average of 5.3 percent last year, with much of the increase coming in the 1990s.

Since the 1970s, law enforcement officers around the country have sent thousands of seized samples to the federally funded Potency Monitoring Project at the University of Mississippi.

The project's latest data show that, in the past year, THC levels in some pot samples have spiked as high as 33 percent.

There is no shortage of pot in the Bay State and demand for the more powerful stuff is on the rise, says the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

``We are seeing an increase of Canadian marijuana coming over the border and, unfortunately, it's the more potent marijuana,'' said Mark Trouville, special agent in charge of the DEA's New England Field Division.

``Children aren't going to know how potent that marijuana cigarette is,'' Trouville said. ``You can get some (Canadian) `BC Bud' as high as 30 percent (THC).''

The influx of potent pot comes as groups that favor decriminalization plan to meet with state lawmakers and seek their support of bills, to be filed in January, that would eliminate jail sentences for first- and second-offense pot posession offenders and instead provide addiction treatment.

Similar bills have stalled in the past.

This time, supporters say, legislators can't ignore the fact that about 60 percent of the voters in the 19 districts where the ballot question ran supported decriminalization.

The nonbinding question asked whether the state representative should vote in favor of legislation that would make possession of less than one ounce of pot a civil violation, punishable by a maximum fine of $100. Currently, such offenders face criminal penalties with jail time and fines up to $1,000.

``The current prohibition on marijuana is ultimately designed to protect public health and it does so,'' said Dr. Michael Gastfriend, director of the addiction research program at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Health experts note that of the reasons for the thousands of drug-related visits to U.S. hospital emergency rooms last year, adverse reactions from pot use ranked fourth. They say this indicates the higher potency is likely catching many off-guard.

``The sizable unknowns about marijuana make it an unreasonable risk to make it widely available,'' Gastfriend said. ``We wouldn't do that today if we had a second chance with tobacco.''

But those who favor decriminalization say it could save the cash-strapped Bay State millions each year in law enforcement resources.

A new report by the Drug Policy Forum concludes that decriminalization could save Massachusetts $24.3 million annually. The report was written by Boston University economics professor Jeffrey Miron.

While not endorsing decriminalization, the head of the Boston Police Department's Drug Control Division said his 100 officers are spread so thinly over the city's 48 square miles, they concentrate on the illicit drugs - crack, cocaine and heroin - that produce the most violence and crime.

``If you live in the South End and kids are smoking pot on the corner, I could have that handled by the walking man who will go broom those kids, saying see you later, scram,'' said Detective Lt. Frank Armstrong.

With the revitalized decriminalization issue headed to the state Legislature, the lawmaker who heads the criminal justice committee says he has some strong reservations - particularly because of pot's increased potency.

``I do not know how you send the message that it's OK for adults to smoke pot and not have the message trickle down to kids,'' said Rep. Stephen Tobin (D-Quincy).

Sixty percent of voters in Tobin's district approved decriminalization. Tobin said he does not believe most voters were aware of the higher potency issue. He also said he was unaware of the report that indicates the state could save $24 million annually through decriminalization.

``I look forward to learning more,'' Tobin said. ``But is it OK to promote marijuana to a whole new generation if it saves $24 million?''

Complete Title: Potent Pot Puts New Spin on Decriminalization Debate

Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Author: Kay Lazar
Published: Sunday, November 17, 2002
Copyright: 2002 The Boston Herald, Inc.
Website: http://www.bostonherald.com/
Contact: letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com

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SCAPEGOATING - Blaming social problems on a cultural, racial, or behaviorial group. PREJUDICE - Selling the public on the idea that all members of the targeted group are 'bad' people. LIES - 'Facts', which cannot be verified, and pseudo scientific studies are used as propaganda against the targeted group. History is rewritten. NO PUBLIC DEBATE - "These people have no right to have their viewpoiunt aired." and " Anyone who disagrees or questions us must be one of them!" DEHUMANIZATION - Characterizing all members of a targeted group as subhuman and typically capable of monstrous deeds and/or crimes. PROTECT OUR CHILDREN - "They corrupt, seduce and or destroy our children." CIVIL LIBERTIES SACRIFICED - "We must give up some of our freedoms, liberties, and rights in order to combat this menace to society." LEGAL DESCRIMINATION - Laws criminalize members of targeted group and they may be denied jobs, the right to own property and/or be restricted as to where they may live or go. INFORMERS - Citizens are urged to 'turn in' friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members. SECRET POLICE - Non-uniformed police squads set up to wage war on targeted groups utilizing deception, infiltration, espionage and entrapment. CONFISCATION OF PROPERTY - Property and assets are seized from people who are members of targeted group. Property may be divided between the informer and the state. REMOVAL FROM SOCIETY - Prisons, rehabilitation camps, 'hospitals', executions and genocide... ("kill them all" "Zero Tolerance")

"The German people have no idea of the extent to which they have to be gulled in order to be led."

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one." From Benito Mussolini contributing to the "London Sunday Express," December 8, 1935

"How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can only be conjectured...No one knows, when he places a marijuana cigarette to his lips, whether he will become a joyous reveller in a musical heaven, a mad insensate, a calm philosopher, or a murderer..." HARRY J ANSLINGER Commissioner of the US Bureau of Narcotics 1930 1962

"All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those towards whom it is directed will understand it. Therefore, the intellectual level of the propaganda must be lower the larger the number of people who are to be influenced by it."

"Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise." From Benito Mussolini contributing to the "London Sunday Express," December 8, 1935

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others." Harry Anslinger, U.S. Commissioner of Narcotics, testifying to Congress on why marijuana should be made illegal, 1937. (Marijuana Tax Act, signed Aug. 2, 1937; effective Oct. 1, 1937.)

"The masses have little time to think. And how incredible is the willingness of modern man to believe."

"Another weapon I discovered early was the power of the printed word to sway souls to me. The newspaper was soon my gun, my flag - a thing with a soul that could mirror my own." Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini together in the heyday of 1930s fascism.

"...somebody has to take governments' place, and business seems to me to be a logical entity to do it." - David Rockefeller - Newsweek International, Feb 1 1999.

ACS - Division of Analytical Chemistry - DAC Awards - John P. Walters 1980

Philanthropy Roundtable John P. Walters President The Philanthropy Roundtable is a national association of tax shelters for corporate representatives, foundation staff and trustees, and trust and estate officers. The Roundtable is founded on the practice that voluntary private action (prison slave labor) offers the best means of addressing many of society's needs, and that a vibrant war on ganja is critical to creating the wealth that makes philanthropy possible. Copyright © 1997-2001 by the Philanthropy Roundtable

"There is a point at which the law becomes immoral and unethical. That point is reached when it becomes a cloak for the cowardice that dares not stand up against blatant violations of justice. A state that supresses all freedom of speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten law." - Kurt Huber [The head of White Rose], killed by the Nazis in 1943.

"Behind Czarist 'Truths' - Deception No Way To Wage Drug War," an editorial published by Daytona Beach News-Journal. http://www.n-jcenter.com/2002/Sep/26/OPN2.htm for the complete editorial.

"The horrors experienced by many young inmates, particularly those who are convicted of nonviolent offenses, border on the unimaginable. Prison rape not only threatens the lives of those who fall prey to their aggressors, but it is potentially devastating to the human spirit. Shame, depression, and a shattering loss of self-esteem accompany the perpetual terror the victim thereafter must endure." U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Farmer v. Brennan

SPR - Stop Prisoner Rape http://www.spr.org/

"Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there." - William E. Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, 1937. Continued... http://www.sumeria.net/politics/shadv3.html

D.E.A.th Deceptions http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ddc/DEAth.html

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