Over the last several years, without many people realizing it, the U.S. government has changed the focus of its anti-drug efforts, deemphasizing marijuana in favor of prescription drugs.

A CBS News survey of government and nonprofit anti-drug groups has found a retreat from anti-marijuana campaigns over the past several years as prescription and over the counter drug abuse has grown amongst teens.

In fact, the Partnership for a Drug Free America, the nation’s largest creator of anti-drug messages, hasn’t produced a single anti-marijuana public service advertisement since 2005.

The change comes as a result of the decline in marijuana use amongst teens, and growing worry over the abuse of prescription drugs. Marijuana use has been declining for 10 years and past-month use is down 25 percent since 2001 according to the largest tracking study in the U.S., “Monitoring the Future” by the University of Michigan.

Meanwhile prescription drug abuse has held steady over the past five years according to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, with nearly one in five teens (19 percent) abusing prescription medications to get high.

“There is a new threat in town,” Robert Dennisoton of the Office of National Drug Control Policy said.

The concern about pills has been highlighted by a string of high profile deaths like that of Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith, and possibly Michael Jackson — all tied to the abuse of legal prescription drugs.

In an effort to spread awareness about the dangers of the misuse of prescription drugs, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America even refers to young people today as “Generation Rx” in TV advertisements that point to the dangers of misuse of those drugs.

“For this generation, high prevalence of prescription drug abuse was kicking in… there was a dawning, and a number of us began to feel that we need to do something about it,” said Sean Clark, executive vice president with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy, the government’s drug policy wing, now dedicates all of its campaign resources directed at parents – some $14 million dollars since 2008 – to the abuse of prescription and over the counter drugs.

“The issue of prescription drug abuse, which the Office of National Drug Control Policy has been shouting about from the rooftops, it is a significant problem in this country,” National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske said on “The Early Show” last week.

Advocates for marijuana legalization argue that the shift from anti-marijuana to anti-pill messages has come at least in large part because prescription and over the counter medicines are far more deadly than marijuana.

“While it is the most widely used illicit drug, it is much less dangerous than prescription drugs,” said Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that supports marijuana legalization.

“The government is talking about the dangers of acetaminophen – this stuff is given out like candy and can kill,” he said. “When you put it in that context, marijuana almost looks benign.”

The addictiveness of marijuana – or lack thereof – compared to other drugs is also cited by supporters.

“The bottom line is the Opiates and Stimulates are much more addictive than marijuana, those that try it are likely to return to them after first use.” said Mitch Earleywine, associate professor of psychology at the State University of New York. “Maybe 9 percent of marijuana users develop problems but 14-23 percent of prescription drug abusers end up saying can’t quit or report withdrawal when they want to stop.”

Advocates also point to recently-released data obtained by the Web site ProCon.org which indicates that prescription drugs are responsible for far more deaths than marijuana.

The report compared data on deaths due to marijuana with FDA-approved medications. It found that the approved drugs — which included anti-psychotics, Attention Deficit Disorder medications, painkillers and other prescription drugs — were suspected as the primary cause of 10,008 deaths and as a secondary cause in 1,679 more.

Marijuana, on the other hand, was the primary suspect in zero deaths and a suspected secondary factor in 279 deaths.

Another report recently issued by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement indicated that prescription drugs caused more deaths than illicit drugs – even including alcohol-related automobile accidents. Prescription drugs were the cause of more than 25 percent of drug related deaths in the state. Marijuana was not listed as a cause of death last year in Florida.

There are now more new abusers of prescription drugs each year than there are abusers of marijuana, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from the Department of Health and Human Services. About 2.15 million people started using prescription pain relievers to get high in 2007, while 2.09 million people started using marijuana that year. By Elizabeth Sprague.

July 12, 2009 – The sad tale of Michael Jackson will be retold a few thousand times more as autopsy reports and estate details emerge.

Meanwhile, the presumed verdict is that Jackson died of prescription drugs. On CNN’s “The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer” on Thursday, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske, said Jackson’s death was a wake-up call to the country about prescription drugs.

Maybe. Maybe not. We all know that abusing prescription drugs – taking them for purposes other than prescribed – is bad for our health. Potentially deadly, in fact.

Regardless, people choose to abuse drugs (or smoke cigarettes or drink booze) for a variety of reasons. But drugs aren’t really what killed Jackson, are they? They may have led to the stopping of his heart, but Jackson’s death spiral began decades ago.

You could see it in his face.

Michael Jackson’s identity crisis wasn’t subtle. There could hardly be a more vivid physical manifestation of a human being’s chaotic psyche than Jackson’s ever-changing visage. Imagine trying so hard to become whole – however one imagines one’s complete self – that you subject your face to multiple transfigurations until you are hardly recognizable as the person you once were.

Fame and the spiritual poverty of lost childhood are what killed Michael Jackson. It seemed inappropriate to air these thoughts before the memorial service. It’s still too soon – and probably irrelevant – to focus on Jackson’s attraction to other people’s children. New York Rep. Peter King’s declaration following Jackson’s death that the pop star was a “lowlife” and a “pervert” not only offended many Americans, it served no useful purpose. An online poll conducted by HCD Research, using the MediaCurves.com Web site, found that 60 percent of participants felt that King went too far, and 57 percent didn’t agree with his statements.

Otherwise, King’s blunt-instrument analysis fell far short of insight into the truly tragic dimension of Jackson’s life. Like the face Jackson tried to fashion around some ideal image, his search for that lost part of himself found expression in his Neverland Ranch.

For a man whose musical genius was unconstrained by gravity, Jackson’s personal search bordered on the banal. Peter Pan? The lost boy in Jackson seemed to grow younger with age. And though interviews through the years suggested that he understood what ailed him, he wasn’t able to approach a grown-up remedy. Perhaps having all the money you could ever dream of – and the worship of millions – meant not ever having to grow up. But a man who isn’t an adult is doomed to pain – and Jackson’s was excruciating to witness.

Rather than receive the therapy he so desperately needed, he projected his needs onto real children and apparently sought to repair himself through them. His sometimes-odd relationships with children – including his defense of sleeping with little boys – will always be a postscript on any appraisals of his immense talent.

Whether Jackson’s good works – not just his artistry but his charity – outweighed his peculiarities will be measured elsewhere.

Meanwhile, his life – more than his death – is a wake-up call, but not about prescription drug abuse. Whatever killed Michael Jackson was merely an instrument of selfdestruction. The real disease was his own wracked soul that pivoted between a drive to push himself to preternatural levels and an almost fetal recoil from the demands of adoration.

The message I suspect even Jackson would hope we get is that children need a childhood, not fame. They need two loving parents, not material things.

Jackson’s life is a testament to genius, yes, but also to a culture best characterized by misplaced priorities. The loss of innocence and our obsession with fame and celebrity are the real plagues, for which drug abuse and other pathologies are but symptoms.

By all accounts, Jackson was painfully empathic toward children’s suffering and, apparently, sought his own relief in their company.

Unfortunately, there was no shortage of peers. Millions of lost boys and girls are wandering in the neverland of instant gratification unbuffered by responsible adults. Most won’t meet such dramatic ends.

Few can afford to indulge their inner child for long or to subsidize the extreme expressions that Jackson underwrote.

But the afflictions of loneliness and delayed maturity born of inadequate nurturing are the same for many. Until we cure those, prescription drug abuse is the least of our problems. By Kathleen Parker. Source.