SOFT-DRUG MARKET SHOULD BE LEGALIZED

The deaths of two innocent members of an American missionary family in Peru
should serve as a wakeup call. Autocratic former president Alberto Fujimori
practiced a scorched-earth campaign against Peru's Shining Path guerrilla
movement, a movement financed by black-market coca profits.

Allegations of corruption, rampant human rights violations and civilian
deaths are remarkably similar to the current situation in Colombia. How
many innocent Peruvians have been sacrificed at the altar of America's drug
war? As Peruvian coca production has gone down, Colombian coca production
and domestic methamphetamine production have both gone up, along with the
U.S. incarceration rate, now the highest in the world.

When will the champions of the free market in the U.S. Congress acknowledge
that immutable laws of supply and demand render the drug war a costly
exercise in futility? This is not to say that all drugs should be
legalized. Taxing and regulating marijuana would separate the hard and soft
drug markets and eliminate the "gateway" to drugs like cocaine.

Establishing strict age controls is critical. Right now kids have an easier
time buying pot than beer. 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 on drugs" politicians would no doubt disagree.

Robert Sharpe, Program Officer, The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy
Foundation, Washington, D.C.