He’s at it again.

The Drug Czar’s got a new set of advertisements coming out. According to his release:

The Office of National Drug Control
Policy’s (ONDCP) National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign today launches a new
advertising campaign to provide scientific facts about marijuana risks and
harms for parents of teens. Themed “Facts for Parents,” the print ad campaign
underscores the potency and carcinogenic content of marijuana and outlines
short- and long-term consequences of marijuana use on adolescent brain
development and learning. Starting today, the ads are running in The New York
Times, USA Today, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. During the
course of the next four months, they will also appear in Newsweek,
BusinessWeek, Time and Smithsonian magazines.

“Scientific facts.” Spare me.
Check their new ads yourself.
An example:

Reliable evidence shows that marijjuana today is more than twice as powerful on average as it was 20 years ago. It contains twice the concentration of THC, the chemical that affects the brain. Pot can turn your hopes and dreams for your kids into a nightmare of lost opportunities.

Reliable evidence shows that gin has more than twice as much alcohol as beer Which is why you don’t drink gin by the case.
Notice how they word the ad? They don’t come out and specifically claim that higher THC pot will cause a nightmare, but they make the reader infer it.
Check out this next one.

Quite a few people think that smoking pot is less likely to cause cancer than a regular cigarette. You may have even heard some parents say they’d rather their kids smoked a little pot than get hooked on cigarettes.

Wrong, and wrong again.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, one joint can deliver four times as much cancer causing tar as one cigarette.

Again, notice what they did? They didn’t say that marijuana causes cancer (there’s no evidence that it does). They simply said it can deliver “cancer causing tar” — but not that tar from marijuana cigarettes alone, in the amounts that most people consume it, adds anything to your chances of getting cancer. And they ignore the fact that people smoke much less pot than cigarettes (particularly if it’s more potent!) and it’s not addictive, so they tend to quit (unlike cigarettes).
But the ONDCP cares so little for life, that they’re willing to blatantly advise parents that it’s better that their kid get hooked on cigarettes than smoke a joint!
It’s particularly disturbing to see this now — with tax day approaching — knowing that I’m paying for it.