Here in the United States, parents demand anti-drug education. Despite this, drug use is not decreasing. In fact, according to a recent survey by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, marijuana use has steadily been growing. Despite the years of anti-drug education classes in schools and "Above the Influence" commercials, individuals seem unfazed and determined to keep doing drugs. But why?

This seems to fly in the face of common sense, so it is necessary to back up and analyze what may be causing this. Are drugs becoming less expensive? No, the war on drugs has ensured that the cartel monopoly keeps drug prices artificially high. Are teenagers ignorant? No, teenagers today have a wealth of knowledge available to them at their fingertips the moment they choose to use it.

Perhaps, then, the anti-drug education most students receive fails to fully inform them of the risks in addition to the non-risks of drug use and thus cannot convince them to completely to refrain from this behavior.

How could years of health class lessons and television commercial campaigns fail to communicate to students the dangers of drug use? To get an idea of what information was being told to these soon-to-be drug-using students, I visited Above the Influence's website to read its drug information pages.

What I found was a lot of very useful information about truly dangerous drugs, such as alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and ketamine. Despite a clear bias against the use of these drugs (which is fine, they are entitled to their goals), they present a fair and largely factual case depicting the pitfalls associated with these risky drugs. They do not shy away from telling children that these substances can have horrifying effects and, in this case, do an admirable job helping to protect America's youth from these very real health threats.

Unfortunately, Above the Influence is more concerned with furthering an indiscriminate anti-drug point of view rather than maintaining their educational integrity and impartially representing less dangerous drugs, such as marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms, and even LSD. Above the Influence could have made a compelling case against the use of marijuana by explaining to readers how being high can cause you to waste time and be unproductive. They instead chose to mention "an association between chronic marijuana use and increased rates of anxiety, depression and schizophrenia" on their website. This is misleading. To me, their intent is clear: Above the Influence is mincing language to trick children who have not yet been taught these statistics into believing that smoking pot will make them anxious, depressed or schizophrenic. However, a cursory glance at the statistics they cite reveals that there is only a correlative link between marijuana and these disorders, not a causative link. The facts clearly are not being represented accurately.

Similarly, on the pages for "magic mushrooms" and "acid,"Above the Influence distorts language and twists the truth rather than offering a clear explanation of what these drugs do. According to Drugs and Society: U.S. Public Policy by J.M. Fish, psilocybin and LSD are lethal when taken in doses over 1,000 times their normal dose —this ratio means that if two pounds of psilocybin will induce its psychoactive effects, it would take a ton of psilocybin to be lethal. Additionally, the human body builds a tolerance to these substances rather rapidly, which causes them to be ineffective if used frequently. This makes it rather obvious that these drugs, though powerful and risky substances, are not addictive or lethal along the same lines as heroin, crack cocaine or methamphetamine. However, none of these additional facts are listed on the website.

Above the Influence does not pay due diligence to these facts. Rather than addressing LSD and psilocybin's intoxicating effects as freestanding arguments against the drugs, they choose to conjure up a smokescreen. In a section called "The Bottom Line," they discuss acid's effect on the brain. "As one of the most important organs of your body, your brain works tirelessly to oversee all of the feelings, actions and operations of your body. When you think about it, LSD seems like a cruel and dangerous hoax to play on your brain." The implication here is obvious: Above the Influence is trying to convey the notion that LSD will prevent your brain from overseeing vital "actions and operations of your body." However, the website would be more successful in deterring individuals from using LSD by just describing the psychoactive experiences of these drugs. In my humble opinion, the idea of being dissociated from reality and subject to hallucinations outside my control is horrifying enough to dissuade me from using these drugs.

If an intelligent teenager makes an honest inquiry into the effects of these drugs, it is impossible for him to take Above the Influence's facts seriously.

The site's deceitful tactics in consciously omitting vital facts is a red flag to anyone willing to look deep enough; this weakens its credibility.

When organizations like Above the Influence are dishonest with those who they claim to protect, they undermine their own objectives. If they truly desire to protect children from gambling their lives for a high, they ought to not only inform readers of risks but also of non-risks. Even if it means some people choose to use "safer" drugs, maintaining the credibility necessary to defend teens against true dangers is worth the price. In their practice of obsessively and indiscriminately chasing down any intoxicant, Above the Influence has crippled their own ethos and become the Teletubbies of drug education. They would do better to adopt an old adage: "Honesty is the best policy."