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Show SA YS EXPERT 'Law hinders drug solution' By Sylvia Kronstadt Staff Writer Drug laws are out of tune with the medical and social problems of drug abuse, a drug expert said Wednesday. Dr. David E. Smith, -20 -year-old director of both the Haight Ashbury Medical Clinic and the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Clinic of the San Francisco Hospital spoke at the opening session of Brigham Young University's BYU Forum. "Everyone has a bias in discussing a problem of such complexity," he commented. "My bias is medical and social. Unfortunately, the legal bias has dominated dealings with the drug problem and the result has been an ineffectual imbalance." The legal emphasis has gone so far in California, said Dr. Smith, that the sentence for possession of marijuana is stronger than that for rape or second degree murder. A convicted pot peddler may get life in prison. Drugs, Dr. Smith believes, are a phenomenon of our society's maturation. He maintains that the problem will increase as Americans become more wealthy, mobile and sophisticated. Today's drug user is not a "dope addict" in the classical sense, although many people continue to believe that drug abuse is confined to underprivileged and ghetto areas. Of 30,000 patients treated in a 15 month period at the Haight Ashbury clinic, the highest representation was from the "professional background" classification, Dr. Smith said. In the bay area, he noted, 40 of high school students said they had used marijuana at least once, indicating that drugs are no longer confined to the hippie subculture. A basic and rarely explored reason for the increasing problem, Dr. Smith remarked, is the fact that ours is a drug-taking society. "In one day, an adult would think little of taking such psychoactive agents as caffeine, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, barbituates and alcohol," he states. The average family is bombarded with drug-promotion, and present laws are either too lenient, as with alcohol, or too strict, as with marijuana. "Existing statutes are destructive and inaccurate," Dr. Smith commented. "Marijuana, which has the toxicity of alcohol, is classified and regulated as a narcotic." Because of such legislation, he added marijuana has become "a vehicle for the generation gap." Dr. Smith feels the need is not to legalize marijuana, but to cohesively view all drugs, and to regulate them in proportion to their abuse potential. A major blockade in the overall battle against drug abuse is the hypocrisy and prejudice of adults, Dr. Smith said. "Parents view the problem as a legal, rather than a social one and are all in favor of stiff penalties until their own child is involved," he stated. "It is self-defeating to discuss 'those kids.' The problem is everyone's." Dr. Smith said approaches to this problem must be new approaches. "Kids today are sophisticated, curious and intelligent," he explained. "Their attitude has become one of 'oh well, that was federally supported research, so it's all a lie anyway." The learning process should also involve more participation by students, using such devices as encounter groups, Dr. Smith believes. |