THE DRUG CORNER
Marinol is an FDA-approved drug containing the principal ac-tive ingredient (THC) found natu-rally in the marijuana plant and most drug stores. Despite Federal Drug Administration approval of synthetic THC, marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 drug. Physicians cannot prescribe Schedule 1 drugs, including marijuana, because such drugs are generally thought to have no medicinal value.
Marinol costs the average AIDS or cancer patient $6000 a year (e.g. lOOmg b.i.d. @$400 for 30 tablets, $9600) and comes in dosages of 2.5, 5 and 10 milligrams. The marijuana plant grows naturally and abundantly in much of the U.S., making the drug very affordable and nearly without cost to those who grow their own, except for the economic impact of prohibition that dramatically increases the cost of marijuana on the black market.
Once ingested by a patient, Marinol may take 45 minutes before giving relief and the chance of under/over medication is enhanced because the drug is manufactured in only three dosages -small, double small, and large. Unlike the three-size-fits-all synthetic THC drug, marijuana, ingested through the lungs, reaches the brain almost immediately (like the delivery system for smokable cocaine). Smoked marijuana treatment also has the advantage that the patient can self-regulate the dosage in more moderate and varied increments, by the "toke."
Marinol proves ineffective to relieve pain, nausea and AIDS wasting (loss of appetite) in some patients, although many of those same patients (and their physicians) attest to the symptomatological effectiveness of smoked marijuana. Unlike the medicinal use of smoked marijuana, Marinol pills do not send the wrong "pro-drug" message to the kids of America. Few Marinol arrests have been reported. However, in an effort to send a drug-free message to kids, since 1965, ten million Americans have been arrested for marijuana crimes.
Prohibited marijuana-once commercially manup;factured in the U.S. for rope, clothing and a wide variety of other legal products-is America's largest agricultural cash crop. The drug is often seized by law enforcement officials by the ton, but is prosecuted by the gram.
The hazards of smoking, eating and otherwise ingesting marijuana (although no deaths have been reported in 5000 years of use) are asserted by one drug czar after another, broadcast by the Partnership For a Drug Free America through media ads and taught in school classrooms by police officers using DARE curriculum (kids are dared not to try drugs, rather than dared to try them). Despite these efforts, recent surveys of teenage drug use report a significant upswing in drug use by those kids who have been exposed to these anti-drug, prevention and educational programs.
Presumably recognizing the effectiveness of anti-drug advertising campaigns and anti-drug teachings and the resultant popularity of marijuana among teenagers, one shoe manufacturer (Addidas) has pyramided the usefulness of free, "anti-drug" advertising with its marketing plans, by the introduction of a new line of gym shoes, called "The Hemp."
In the Philippines, an island sporting a $630 million a year marijuana industry, more prison inmates wait on death row for marijuana crimes than for any other drug crime.
For those who, like myself, have difficulty making these facts add up sensibly, it must be remembered that drug war policies must be viewed in a reverse-image mirror. All psychological, economic and marketing rules work-just in reverse, backwards and upside down.
Tell kids not to use drugs repetitively from every quarter and they're more likely to try them. Aim to reduce drug availability with high drug prices through interdiction and other law enforcement measures and, curiously, prices fall, drug strength increases and drugs become more available. Broadcast anti-drug messages over radio and television, in the classrooms and print media, from bully political pulpits and, annoyingly, drug use flourishes and the drug business booms.
These anti-drug rules really do work, albeit in the reverse, upside down and backwards from what one would expect. Someone should tell those who make American and world drug policy.
-James Gierach, a former prosecutor, is executive director of The Drug Corner, based in Oak Lawn, Illinois.