POT PROHIBITION DEADLY

Editor, The Star, Sir:

Regarding your excellent Aug. 2nd editorial on the failing war against pot,
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 1900's. 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. White
North Americans 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 would send 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. The thriving black
market has no such controls, making it easier for kids to buy marijuana
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.

Current 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. Opportunistic "tough ondrugs" politicians would
no doubt disagree.

Robert Sharpe,

Washington, D.C., U.S.A.