STOP THE MADNESS

A new bill promises to relieve the failing Drug War.

The drug war has been a sorry failure. We've squandered billions of
dollars on a fight we are far from winning. The drug war has had brutal
consequences on minority and inner city neighborhoods and grossly
overcrowded America's prisons. In fact, the country has become a virtual
police state while citizens conform to "tough" drug laws.

It's a well accepted fact that we cannot afford to make drug laws any
tougher, in order to solve the "drug problem". Many other countries around
the globe have either legalized or at least decriminalized possession of
certain drugs, particularly cannabis and they have seen less and safer
use. These countries prove that lawmakers need to rethink their approach
to drug use.

The Texas legislature is now faced with a unique opportunity to remedy some
of the damage caused by the war on drugs. Two bills were introduced into
the house of representatives about a month ago. The first, House Bill
#513, would allow a defendant (to) use medicinal necessity as a defense
against possession of marijuana, assuming the defendant can prove he or she
needed it for medical purposes. The second bill, House Bill #1028, would
reduce the sentence of possession of less than two ounces of marijuana from
a class B to a class C misdemeanor, and reduce the sentence of possession
of more than two ounces from a class A to a class B misdemeanor. This
means that no one would have to face jail time for possession of marijuana,
assuming it's a first time offense.

When people talk about the horrors of drug use, their discourse is usually
not within the context of cannabis, the drug most commonly associated with
cannabis is marijuana. Marijuana has proven medical benefits for Glaucoma,
Anxiety, AIDS patients, and various other ailments, and it is substantially
less toxic than alternative medicinal drugs. The harm in using marijuana
is almost always associated with smoking the drug, even though there are
alternative methods of ingesting it. Also, the harms of smoking it are
commonly overstated. According to a World Health Organization study
released about a year ago concluded smoking marijuana would still be less
harmful than smoking tobacco even if they were smoked with the same
frequency. The study also concluded that THC, the active ingredient in
marijuana, does not increase the likelihood of contracting cancer. There
has not been a single fatality caused by marijuana use, and the rhetoric
that it serves as a gateway drug leading to more harmful drug use has been
proven untrue. In many western European countries, where marijuana has
been decriminalized, "harder" drug use has not increased.

Even those people opposed to drug use should support these two bills,
because they will remedy the harm caused by the drug war. Prisons will
become less crowded and the government will save millions of
dollars. Similar laws such as these were implemented in Sweden and France,
and these countries have actually seen a decrease in street crime.

We can't afford to let these bills die in congress. The most effective
thing you as an individual can do is to write your congressional
representative from your residential district, and explain why these bills
are necessary to reduce crime and to create a better social environment for
everyone.

Information about how to write your representative can be found at
http://www.texaslegislature.gov, and there is no excuse for inaction.