PUSHING POT REFORM

RE LINDA Williamson's excellent Aug. 5 column on reefer madness: North
America's marijuana laws are based on culture and xenophobia, not health
outcomes.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican migration
during the early 1900s. An Edmonton woman writing under the pen name Janey
Canuck first warned Canadians about the dread marijuana and its association
with non-white immigrants. The sensationalist yellow journalism of William
Randolph Hearst led to its criminalization in the United States. Whites did
not even begin to smoke marijuana until a soon-to-be entrenched government
bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda.

When threatened, the drug war gravy train predictably decries the "message"
that drug policy reform sends to children.

There is a big difference between condoning marijuana use and protecting
children from drugs. Decriminalization acknowledges the social reality of
marijuana use and frees users from the stigma of life-shattering criminal
records.

What's really needed is a regulated market with age controls. Right now,
kids have an easier time buying pot than beer.

Although marijuana is relatively harmless compared to most legal drugs - the
plant has never been shown to cause an overdose death - marijuana
prohibition is deadly.

As the most popular illicit drug, marijuana provides the black market
contacts that introduce youth to addictive drugs like heroin. Present drug
policy is a gateway policy.

Drug policy reform may send the wrong message to children, but I like to
think the children are more important than the message.

Robert Sharpe, Program Officer

The Lindesmith Centre Drug Policy Foundation, Washington, D.C.

(Nothing should be more important)