IS NOW THE RIGHT TIME TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA?

YES, UNCLOG PRISONS, FIGHT REAL CRIME

How much power should some people have to punish other people for
politically incorrect habits?

Since 1937, the U.S. government has been waging war against marijuana
users. According to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, 70-plus million Americans have used marijuana at least once
in their lifetimes.

Yet, the federal government still considers marijuana to be the Great
Satan. Nearly 700,000 people were arrested for marijuana violations in 1998
- -- more people than were arrested for murder, rape, robbery and aggravated
assault combined, as the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws
points out.

Law enforcement resources are limited: The more time cops spend on
marijuana crackdowns, the less time they have to protect Americans against
violent predators.

How many murders and rapes go unprosecuted because law enforcement is
racking up impressive Vietnam-style body counts against potheads?

Marijuana laws are more harmful than marijuana. A recent National Academy
of Science study concluded: "Except for the harms associated with smoking,
the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects
tolerated for other medications."

A 1999 study by the University of Toronto found that marijuana has far less
adverse effect on drivers than does alcohol. The British medical journal
Lancet editorialized in 1995 that "the smoking of cannabis, even long term,
is not harmful to health."

According to more than 100 published studies, marijuana can provide medical
benefits to people suffering from multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, asthma, and
the effects of a stroke.

Marijuana is also invaluable for people suffering from chemotherapy or the
effects of AIDS treatment.

A 1999 Gallup poll found that almost three-quarters of Americans favored
permitting the use of marijuana as medicine. Yet Drug Czar Gen. Barry
McCaffrey ridicules claims of marijuana's medical benefit as "Cheech `n'
Chong medicine."

Most people who smoke marijuana do not do so for medicinal purpose --
unless one considers alleviation of tension or boredom or unhappiness as
medicinal. Marijuana may have fewer side-effects than Prozac, Zolaft or
other widely used anti-depressants.

It is also debatable whether moderate marijuana use is more mind-numbing
than an addiction to television. Excessive marijuana use can, like
excessive alcohol consumption, sap a person's will and undermine the
person's character. But simply because some substance is harmful in some
circumstances does not justify allowing politicians to seize more power
over everyone.

The war on marijuana is dismally failing to protect children. The
percentage of eighth-graders who used marijuana tripled between 1991 and
1997. More high school students (90 percent) reported that marijuana was
"fairly easy" or "very easy" to get in 1998 than ever before, according to
a federally funded anti-drug survey.

There is no proof that legalizing marijuana would result in increased
usage. Marijuana is legal for adults in the Netherlands. The percentage of
Americans who have used marijuana during their lifetime, or in the last
month, is more than double the percentage of Dutch who have used marijuana.

Marijuana should be legalized. The same type of restrictions that currently
prohibit the sale of alcohol to minors could be enforced as well on
marijuana. The system would not be foolproof -- but it would certainly be
far less ludicrous than the status quo.

Yes, unclog prisons, fight real crime.

Bovard is the author of the just-published "Feeling Your Pain: The
Explosion & Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years" (St.
Martin's Press). Send your views on this column or the one below to Letter
to the Editor, by e-mail to letters@duluthnews.com or by mail to 424 W.
First St., Duluth MN 55802.

NO, MEDICAL MARIJUANA IS A HOAX

Tell your congressman that you're among the 85 percent of Americans opposed
to legalizing drugs. Help him or her understand there's a campaign of
misinformation to legalize drugs beginning with the "marijuana cigarettes
are medicine" hoax.

We've fought drug legalization since l977 when "legalizers" were a few
stoned disciples of LSD advocate Timothy Leary. We stopped them in l978 by
defeating Rep. Newton Steers, a Maryland Republican who supported weaker
drug controls.

In fact, legalization was "dead" until the legalizers convinced four
wealthy fat cats -- financier George Soros, Progressive Insurance CEO Peter
Lewis, Apollo Group President John Sperling and Men's Warehouse CEO George
Zimmerman -- that legalizing marijuana was the answer to America's drug
problem.

Soros and his cronies are pouring millions into misinformation campaigns
aimed at passing state initiatives that would violate the Federal
Controlled Substances Act. States simply do not have the authority to
legalize marijuana, heroin and ecstasy, no matter how many signatures are
gathered.

The legalizers chose to support state initiatives knowing the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration will not approve marijuana cigarettes as medicine. And
voters, of course, aren't allowed to approve medicines. Under existing law,
only the FDA has that authority.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) has led
the legalization march. Concerned parents call its founder, Keith Stroup,
the "Father of the Teen Marijuana Epidemic."

And no wonder! In High Times, a magazine that chronicles the marijuana
subculture, Stroup wrote that "there's no particular evidence that even
those few young people who smoke a great deal of marijuana necessarily hurt
their level of performance, academic or otherwise."

Stroup also told a group of students at Atlanta's Emory University: "We're
trying to get marijuana reclassified medically. If we do that, we'll be
using the issue as a red herring to give marijuana a good name."

The legalizers touted marijuana cigarettes as a medicine long after the
National Institutes of Health warned:

"People with HIV and others whose immune system is impaired should avoid
marijuana use."

Another legalizing group, the Drug Policy Foundation, recently merged with
Soros' Lindesmith Center. DPF's idea of prevention was to develop a "safe
crack smoking pipe." Apparently it's OK for crack to burn out your brain as
long as it doesn't burn your lips in the process.

Unfortunately, the efforts of anti-drug parents are no match for the likes
of Soros and his associates. They've literally poured money into the
campaign coffers of numerous politicians, including Vice President Al Gore.
Gore, it should be noted, has withdrawn his support for the use of "medical
marijuana cigarettes." He should return Soros' campaign contributions as well.

Other prominent politicians backing legalization are Gov. Gary Johnson,
R-N.M., and Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Calif., who is running for the Senate this
fall against Democratic incumbent Dianne Feinstein.

Americans should go to the polls next month and vote to send lawmakers who
favor legalization into political exile where their bizarre ideas can't
hurt America's children. That would be real harm reduction.

Nalepka is president of America Cares Inc. and Drug-Free Kids -- America's
Challenge.