T
The420Guy
Guest
Dr. Andrea Barthwell cringes when she hears phrases like "zero tolerance" and
"gateway drug." This might seem like an odd reaction from the White House
deputy drug czar, but then Barthwell is not your typical war-on-drugs
hardliner.
Barthwell is the first physician appointed to a senior position in the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy since the late 1980s. An African
American who spent most of her career helping stem addiction among minorities
and women with children in Chicago, she's also a Democrat. In fact, her
nomination was backed by liberal leaders like the late Sen. Paul Wellstone of
Minnesota.
So what is she doing in the Bush White House?
"I really thought about it," Barthwell said in an interview last week. "It's
the issue."
Addiction is an issue she cares about deeply.
She is the former medical director of Illinois Treatment Alternatives for
Safe Communities, a nonprofit that provides behavioral health services for the
criminal justice and child welfare systems. She helped found the Chicago AIDS
Task Force and served two terms as president of the Illinois Society of
Addiction Medicine.
Since her appointment in January 2002 as deputy director of demand reduction,
Barthwell said she has been working to instill a more scientific -- and
humanitarian -- approach to national drug policy.
"It is a completely different strategy than the war on drugs," she said. "It
shifts the focus away from the drugs and instead focuses on the impact
substances have on people, communities and our nation as a whole."
Focusing on people means not only reaching the 6 million or so addicts in
America, but also targeting the estimated 10 million "non-dependent" drug
users,
people who take illegal drugs recreationally but are not addicted. The
majority smoke pot.
A large part of Barthwell's job is implementing President Bush's so-called
Marijuana Initiative, launched last fall, which aims to stamp out access to
and
use of cannabis.
Barthwell said the way to accomplish this goal is through the lens of
science.
"I always like to say, you get the advice that you seek. And President Bush
nominated me to serve in this position, not someone trained in the arts of
war," she said. "He was seeking advice from someone trained in the healing
arts.
That's what I've brought to it and that's the focus."
Part of her focus is getting rid of the mantra that marijuana is a gateway to
harder drug abuse, which she said is "just a theory." Instead, she sees
marijuana itself as dangerous to young people, based on scientific evidence.
"It matters little as to whether it is a gateway or not," she said, noting
that more teenagers are in treatment for marijuana use than for alcohol.
"But it
is damaging enough, potent enough that it can change the trajectory of a
person's life if they start using it before age 17."
With this in mind, the Office of National Drug Control Policy is spending
$149 million this fiscal year on a sweeping ad campaign. One of the so-called
anti-drug spots depicts teenagers dying in a car crash after smoking pot. In
another, a young woman who is date-raped at a party after taking tokes off a
joint. Barthwell said these spots are meant to illustrate the impact
marijuana has
on teens' decision-making abilities.
Smoking marijuana clouds judgment, Barthwell said. This is scientifically
proven.
Yet to be proven, she said, is pot as a legitimate form of pain management.
As a physician, I wanted to have control over a delivery system, she said,
citing well-tread concerns on marijuana dosage and side effects. She supports
prescribing marinol -- which contains a synthetic version of Delta-9 THC, an
active ingredient in marijuana -- as an extremely viable alternative for
individuals who would want us to have smoked weed as medicine.
Accepting smoked marijuana in pain management should be done through
scientific process, she said, with review from the Federal Drug
Administration, where
she sits on the drug approval advisory board. That process, she added, should
not be brought down by local referendums.
Barthwell's assigned task of swaying public opinion on medicinal marijuana --
a contentious, political issue that ignites passionate responses in almost
everyone with a pulse -- won't be easy.
Dr. David Smith, founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic and, like
Barthwell, a past president of the American Society on Addiction Medicine,
said he
doesn't envy his colleague.
Obviously, she wouldn't have taken the position without thinking she could do
some good, Smith said. She is the top physician in addiction medicine in
government and, hopefully, she can shift the focus away from criminal
justice to
treatment.
The nature of drug policy in America entangles Barthwell in criminal justice
matters. She is not soft on drug suppliers. She celebrates an administration
proposal to double funding for drug courts from $50 million to $100 million
over the next two years.
And she has little sympathy for pot distributors like Ed Rosenthal. A
national figure in the medicinal marijuana movement, Rosenthal was found
guilty in
January of violating three federal marijuana laws, carrying a minimum sentence
of five years.
Rosenthal was deputized by the city of Oakland in 1998 to grow cannabis for
chronically ill patients under the assumed protection of a city ordinance and
the state's 1996 Compassionate Use Act, which allows use of the drug with a
physician's consent.
U.S. District Judge Charles R. Bryer did not allow this information to be
admitted in Rosenthal's trial, citing it as an invalid defense in federal
court.
Many jurors said they regretted their verdict upon learning that Rosenthal had
the city's permission to grow marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Barthwell does not see Rosenthal's prosecution as excessive.
It seems excessive that someone would grow and distribute a controlled
substance, she said.
All this discussion about marijuana, however, seems to make her a bit weary.
She brightens when talk turns to scientific breakthroughs in addiction
medicine like buprenorphine, a promising drug therapy for heroin addicts
that can be
administered in the privacy of a physician's office.
We have lagged way behind where we could have been in this country had there
been a serious medication development program to treat addicts, she said. I
hope this White House can nurture that.
Author: Rebecca Vesely, Staff Writer
Published: Saturday, May 24, 2003
Copyright: 2003 MediaNews Group, Inc.
Contact:mmcpartl@angnewspapers.com
Website:San Mateo County news | The Mercury News
"gateway drug." This might seem like an odd reaction from the White House
deputy drug czar, but then Barthwell is not your typical war-on-drugs
hardliner.
Barthwell is the first physician appointed to a senior position in the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy since the late 1980s. An African
American who spent most of her career helping stem addiction among minorities
and women with children in Chicago, she's also a Democrat. In fact, her
nomination was backed by liberal leaders like the late Sen. Paul Wellstone of
Minnesota.
So what is she doing in the Bush White House?
"I really thought about it," Barthwell said in an interview last week. "It's
the issue."
Addiction is an issue she cares about deeply.
She is the former medical director of Illinois Treatment Alternatives for
Safe Communities, a nonprofit that provides behavioral health services for the
criminal justice and child welfare systems. She helped found the Chicago AIDS
Task Force and served two terms as president of the Illinois Society of
Addiction Medicine.
Since her appointment in January 2002 as deputy director of demand reduction,
Barthwell said she has been working to instill a more scientific -- and
humanitarian -- approach to national drug policy.
"It is a completely different strategy than the war on drugs," she said. "It
shifts the focus away from the drugs and instead focuses on the impact
substances have on people, communities and our nation as a whole."
Focusing on people means not only reaching the 6 million or so addicts in
America, but also targeting the estimated 10 million "non-dependent" drug
users,
people who take illegal drugs recreationally but are not addicted. The
majority smoke pot.
A large part of Barthwell's job is implementing President Bush's so-called
Marijuana Initiative, launched last fall, which aims to stamp out access to
and
use of cannabis.
Barthwell said the way to accomplish this goal is through the lens of
science.
"I always like to say, you get the advice that you seek. And President Bush
nominated me to serve in this position, not someone trained in the arts of
war," she said. "He was seeking advice from someone trained in the healing
arts.
That's what I've brought to it and that's the focus."
Part of her focus is getting rid of the mantra that marijuana is a gateway to
harder drug abuse, which she said is "just a theory." Instead, she sees
marijuana itself as dangerous to young people, based on scientific evidence.
"It matters little as to whether it is a gateway or not," she said, noting
that more teenagers are in treatment for marijuana use than for alcohol.
"But it
is damaging enough, potent enough that it can change the trajectory of a
person's life if they start using it before age 17."
With this in mind, the Office of National Drug Control Policy is spending
$149 million this fiscal year on a sweeping ad campaign. One of the so-called
anti-drug spots depicts teenagers dying in a car crash after smoking pot. In
another, a young woman who is date-raped at a party after taking tokes off a
joint. Barthwell said these spots are meant to illustrate the impact
marijuana has
on teens' decision-making abilities.
Smoking marijuana clouds judgment, Barthwell said. This is scientifically
proven.
Yet to be proven, she said, is pot as a legitimate form of pain management.
As a physician, I wanted to have control over a delivery system, she said,
citing well-tread concerns on marijuana dosage and side effects. She supports
prescribing marinol -- which contains a synthetic version of Delta-9 THC, an
active ingredient in marijuana -- as an extremely viable alternative for
individuals who would want us to have smoked weed as medicine.
Accepting smoked marijuana in pain management should be done through
scientific process, she said, with review from the Federal Drug
Administration, where
she sits on the drug approval advisory board. That process, she added, should
not be brought down by local referendums.
Barthwell's assigned task of swaying public opinion on medicinal marijuana --
a contentious, political issue that ignites passionate responses in almost
everyone with a pulse -- won't be easy.
Dr. David Smith, founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic and, like
Barthwell, a past president of the American Society on Addiction Medicine,
said he
doesn't envy his colleague.
Obviously, she wouldn't have taken the position without thinking she could do
some good, Smith said. She is the top physician in addiction medicine in
government and, hopefully, she can shift the focus away from criminal
justice to
treatment.
The nature of drug policy in America entangles Barthwell in criminal justice
matters. She is not soft on drug suppliers. She celebrates an administration
proposal to double funding for drug courts from $50 million to $100 million
over the next two years.
And she has little sympathy for pot distributors like Ed Rosenthal. A
national figure in the medicinal marijuana movement, Rosenthal was found
guilty in
January of violating three federal marijuana laws, carrying a minimum sentence
of five years.
Rosenthal was deputized by the city of Oakland in 1998 to grow cannabis for
chronically ill patients under the assumed protection of a city ordinance and
the state's 1996 Compassionate Use Act, which allows use of the drug with a
physician's consent.
U.S. District Judge Charles R. Bryer did not allow this information to be
admitted in Rosenthal's trial, citing it as an invalid defense in federal
court.
Many jurors said they regretted their verdict upon learning that Rosenthal had
the city's permission to grow marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Barthwell does not see Rosenthal's prosecution as excessive.
It seems excessive that someone would grow and distribute a controlled
substance, she said.
All this discussion about marijuana, however, seems to make her a bit weary.
She brightens when talk turns to scientific breakthroughs in addiction
medicine like buprenorphine, a promising drug therapy for heroin addicts
that can be
administered in the privacy of a physician's office.
We have lagged way behind where we could have been in this country had there
been a serious medication development program to treat addicts, she said. I
hope this White House can nurture that.
Author: Rebecca Vesely, Staff Writer
Published: Saturday, May 24, 2003
Copyright: 2003 MediaNews Group, Inc.
Contact:mmcpartl@angnewspapers.com
Website:San Mateo County news | The Mercury News
