Dear Members of the Public Safety Committee of the California Assembly,
 
     At a time when teen marijuana use is rampant throughout California as well as throughout the rest of the nation, marijuana is widely recognized as a gateway drug often leading to serious addiction. Uncontrollable addiction currently directly produces over 3,000 drug-induced (mostly overdose) deaths EVERY MONTH throughout America, of which California has its proportionate share. This 3,000 per month figure is derived from the latest CDC annual national mortality reports citing a total of 38,396 drug-induced deaths in 2006, the latest year available. See attached graph based on CDC data.
 
     It is well established in scientific studies that teen perception of marijuana as harmless leads to increased teen use. Thus, all the publicity about attempts to directly legalize marijuana as in AB 390 or through the back-door legalization of smoked weed as an approved snake-oil medicine, feeds the teen perception of harmlessness. This in turn has the disastrous effect of increasing the very dangerous teen activity (smoking pot) that is contributing in a major way to the ultimate national health and safety crisis of massive drug overdose deaths.
 
     Your vote against AB 390 will confirm your commitment to the safety of Californians and serve as an effective counter-force to the damage-causing advocacy of marijuana legalization that currently endangers all children and all families throughout California- including your own!
 
Thank you,
 
DeForest Rathbone, Chairman
National Institute of Citizen Anti-drug Policy (NICAP)
Great Falls, Virginia