Marijuana Fear-Mongering and Misinformation

A friend recently directed me toward the website of The Foundation for a Drug-Free World, a Los Angeles-based non-profit whose tagline is â€œan effective drug education and drug prevention program.â€ I was shocked and dismayed to see the â€œdrug factsâ€ section (they seem to have a monopoly on â€œthe truthâ€ about drugs), which reads like an amateur 1950s terror campaign.

Marijuana, inexplicably listed under the headline â€œjoints,â€ apparently will cause you to have a heart attack, and eventually will lead to psychosis.

For MDMA, the complete list of short-term effects is as follows:

â€¢ impaired judgment

â€¢ false sense of affection

â€¢ confusion

â€¢ depression

â€¢ sleep problems

â€¢ severe anxiety

â€¢ paranoia

â€¢ drug craving

â€¢ muscle tension

â€¢ involuntary teeth clenching

â€¢ nausea

â€¢ blurred vision

â€¢ faintness and chills or sweating.

Someone clearly misnamed that drug ecstasy!

Arenâ€™t we past this fear-mongering and misinformation? Even the federal governmentâ€™s National Institute on Drug Abuse acknowledges that â€œstudies testing the effectiveness of information dissemination or fear-arousal approaches have consistently shown that they do not work.â€

To actually reduce our drug abuse and addiction problems (and they are severe [1]), we need better. And we should expect better, even from an organization founded by the Church of Scientology.

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[1] According to the NIDA, in 2006, 23 million people, or nearly 10% of the American population over age 12, needed treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol use problem. Nevertheless, of those 23 million, only 10.8% received treatment, leaving some 21 million without.