METH WARRANTS POLICY CHANGES

Dear Editor;

How should St. Marys respond to illicit methamphetamine use? Here in
the United States, New York City chose the zero tolerance approach
during the crack epidemic of the eighties.

Meanwhile, Washington, DC Mayor Marion Barry was smoking crack and
America's capital had the highest per capita murder rate in the
country. Yet crack use declined in both cities simultaneously. The
decline was not due to a slick anti-drug advertising campaign or the
passage of mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Simply put, the younger
generation saw firsthand what crack was doing to their older siblings
and decided for themselves that crack was bad news.

This is not to say nothing can be done about methamphetamine. Access
to drug treatment is critical for the current generation of users. To
protect future generations from hard drugs like meth, policymakers
need to adopt the Canadian Senate's common sense proposal to tax and
regulate marijuana. As long as marijuana distribution remains in the
hands of organized crime, consumers will continue to come into
contact with addictive drugs like meth. This "gateway" is the direct
result of a fundamentally flawed policy. Drug policy reform may send
the wrong message to children, but I like to think the children are
more important than the message.

This U.S. Department of Justice research brief confirms my claims
regarding the spontaneous decline of crack cocaine:
www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles1/nij/187490.txt; also see this Canadian Senate
report:
www.parl.gc.ca/common/Committee-SenRep.asp?Language=E&Parl7&Ses=1&comm-id .

Sincerely,

Robert Sharpe, MPA

Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, DC