POT PROHIBITION IS ON THE WAY OUT

The Voters Speak

OVER THE last few years, repealing Marijuana Prohibition has gone from
political third rail to no-brainer - at least for the average voter, who is
generally smarter than the average politician.

Voters in a number of states have passed measures decriminalizing the
medical use of marijuana, and some locales have gone even further, passing
local or county measures, doing away with the whole war on this particular
drug - which, unfortunately, are only symbolic measures due to the federal
"nuke them all" attitude.

The tide has definitely turned. The government just hasn't yet seen the
writing on the wall.

The only people still living in the Dark Ages, reveling in their inhumane
repression and torture of marijuana users, are the drug warriors and their
apologists in the political class - many of whom used drugs in the past
themselves, but who refuse to do a thing to lift the iron heel of the state
from the necks of others who are doing what they used to. The recently
departed president comes to mind.

I'm heartened by the example of Mendocino County, Calif. As depicted in a
recent telecast of the TV newsmagazine "60 Minutes II," the people of
Mendocino County have actually begun ostracizing their state's drug
warriors - refusing to serve them in restaurants, asking them to leave town
and broadcasting their movements on local radio stations.

Twenty-seven states are currently considering industrial-hemp initiatives.
Others are taking a look at medical marijuana. Virginia already has it,
thanks to good legislation passed in the late '70s.

Things are looking good outside the United States, too: Uruguay's president
is now calling for legalization of drugs in his country. Belgium has given
up its crusade against pot. It took a multibillion-dollar bribe straight
out of the U.S. treasury to get one South American country to put on a
Prohibition show for the Yankee drug-warrior class. Expect the canny folks
there to give a good show for the cameras, all the while pocketing a lot of
that loot for their own kids' college educations, right under everyone's noses.

Warring against drugs is now limited to mostly police-state countries. It's
sad that the United States wishes to be part of that cabal.

It is time for a full and open debate about repealing Marijuana
Prohibition. Drug warriors have used tax money taken forcibly from drug
users and nonusers alike to promote meal-ticket drug-war jobs and to bury
any possibility of open debate. Now it's time for the public to drag its
leaders, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the 22nd century.

Prohibition didn't work with alcohol, and it doesn't work for anything else
- - not guns, not prostitution and definitely not drugs. The predictable
result of the slash-and-burn campaign against the right of individuals to
ingest what they like has been the wholesale eradication of constitutional
limits against the power of government, and an alarming trend toward a
systemically corrupt law-enforcement establishment.

Nothing more.

Prohibition has not eradicated drug use, nor will it ever. It can't.

As long as there are still people out there who march to the beat of a
different drummer, attempting to control their behavior with prohibition,
incarceration, torture or any other method just will not work.

MARC MONTONI is executive director of the Libertarian Party of Virginia.

Voters in a number of states have passed measures decriminalizing the
medical use of marijuana.