A little ditty from the marijuana files, courtesy of the Drug Reform Coordination Network: On Dec. 10, Iowa drug czar Marvin Van Haaften, director of the governor’s drug-control policy office, told Iowa public television viewers that the scourge of methamphetamine use and abuse isn’t the only thing Hawkeyes should be afraid of. Indeed, he said, the number of Iowans now in treatment for “marijuana addiction” is going up, up, up. “It is to the point now where I think we have to take a real serious look at marijuana again for its addictive qualities,” he said.
The problem, he said, is the high percentage of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) now found in weed seized by the state’s drug warriors, which he said ranges between 24 and 37% – making today’s superweed a far cry from your daddy’s dope. For example, Van Haaften told viewers, when he was in the army, stationed in Kansas in 1963, the average pot “was at best two percent pure.” Sad, sad news for Van Haaften, perhaps, but if his claims about that new breed of superpot are true – ahem – then it seems corn isn’t the only crop that Iowans have to be proud of.
This article appears in December 24 • 2004.