WAR ON DRUGS IS A FAILED POLICY

To the editor:
The Supreme Court ruling against the use of thermal imaging highlights a
major flaw in the drug war.

Simply put, it's not possible to wage a war against consensual vices unless
privacy is completely eliminated, along with the Constitution. America can
either be a free country or a "drug-free" country, but not both. The U.S.
Supreme Court ruling stemmed from police use of thermal imaging to detect
indoor grow lights used in marijuana cultivation. The drug war is in large
part a war against marijuana, by far the most popular illicit drug. In 1999
there were 704,812 arrests for marijuana, 620,541 for possession alone. For
a drug that has never been shown to cause an overdose death, the allocation
of resources used to enforce marijuana laws is outrageous.

Of course, a reform of marijuana laws would derail the entire drug war
gravy train. Marijuana is demonized as a "gateway" drug that leads to
harder drugs, when in fact marijuana prohibition is best described as a
gateway policy. Illicit marijuana provides the black market contacts that
introduce users to harder drugs like heroin. As for protecting children
from drugs, the thriving black market has no age controls.

Taxing and regulating marijuana is a cost-effective alternative to spending
tens of billions annually on a failed drug war. It makes no sense to waste
scarce resources on failed policies that finance organized crime,
facilitate the use of addictive hard drugs, and threaten to undermine
America's Constitution.

Robert Sharpe Program Officer The Lindesmith Center Drug Policy Foundation
http://www.drugpolicy.org Washington, D.C.