DRUG WAR HAS A HIGH COST AND A LOW DEMAND

The State Department's report on annual drug trafficking brings to mind
Joseph Heller's novel "Catch-22." According to the report, the success of
U.S.-Mexican counterdrug cooperation depends on Mexico's ability to combat
institutional corruption. Yet Mexico's institutional corruption is a direct
result of America's drug war. The international drug trafficking
organizations that corrupt Mexican law enforcement are aided by the drug
war's distortion of basic supply and demand dynamics. Without prohibition
economics, marijuana would be virtually worthless. The never-ending drug
war has made an easily grown weed literally worth its weight in gold in
American cities.

The U.S. criminal justice system is not immune from corruption. The high
profile Los Angeles Police Department Rampart scandal, in which anti-drug
officers were caught selling drugs and framing gang members, is one of many
examples. The crime, corruption and overdose deaths attributed to drugs are
all direct results of drug prohibition. Alcohol producers no longer gun
each down in drive-by shootings, nor do consumers go blind drinking
unregulated bathtub gin. According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, injection drug use has directly and indirectly accounted for 58
percent of all AIDS cases among women in the United States. This public
health crisis is a direct result of zero tolerance policies that restrict
access to clean syringes. It's time to stop wasting the taxpayers' money on
drug policies that do more harm than good.

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