Booze Kills, Marijuana Doesn't -- But Maybe the War on Marijuana Does

Today's Associated Press story on a group of college presidents proposing reconsideration of the legal drinking age is accompanied in some outlets by a fascinating graph, reproduced here. Two things are striking:

1) The number of alcohol poisoning deaths in the U.S. each year is shockingly high, consistently between 300 and 400. The number of annual deaths from marijuana poisoning remains -- as always -- zero.

2) The number of alcohol poisoning deaths spiked just as the U.S. government started going all-out to demonize marijuana, deploying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of anti-marijuana ads on TV, radio, and in print.

One can't help but wonder if this is really just coincidence. The recent low point came in 2000, with 327 alcohol poisoning deaths overall, and 16 among college-age Americans. In 2001, the Bush administration came into office, with anti-marijuana zealot John Walters taking over as drug czar late in the year. Shortly thereafter, Walters began his anti-marijuana crusade, and in 2002 alcohol poisoning deaths spiked to 383 -- a level they've roughly maintained ever since. Booze deaths among college-age young people also ratcheted upward, and in 2005 set a recent record of 35 in one year.

No one wants to encourage kids either to drink or smoke marijuana. But if you keep bombarding young people with propaganda about the dangers of marijuana while saying virtually nothing about the possibility that booze can literally kill you -- precisely what our government has done -- well, that just might be "sending a message to young people," as the federal bureaucrats say. And that message could be deadly.