MARIJUANA IS LESS EVIL DRUG THAN U. S. PROTECTED BOOZE

One of the major reasons the drug war has been such a spectacular failure is
the strange and selective nature of modern prohibition that grants a
government-protected monopoly to a drug like alcohol and prohibits marijuana
based on popularity and mythology rather than science.

In 1968, the French National Health and Medical Research Institute and
experts from other countries rated drugs by their danger. They established
three groups. The "most dangerous" group included only alcohol, heroin and
cocaine. Marijuana was in the "least dangerous" category.

Last year, our government paid one million dollars for a report from 24
leading experts. This report from the Institute of Medicine said that
marijuana is not a gateway but that making marijuana illegal does push users
toward the use of more dangerous drugs, the exact opposite of our intention.

The United Nations Bulletin on Narcotics in 1957 stated that "indulgence in
(marijuana), unlike alcohol, rarely brings the habit into a state of extreme
intoxication where he loses entire control over himself. As a rule, those
who indulge habitually can carry on their ordinary vocations for long
periods and do not become a burden to society or even a nuisance."

For centuries in other cultures marijuana was eaten, drunk or smoked as a
daily staple. Many American troops stationed in Panama after 1916 bean to
use marijuana instead of alcohol. A special military panel examined the
situation for 15 years and concluded there was no significant problem. The
Dutch essentially have had legal marijuana for 24 years, and it has had
little more effect on their society than the introduction of a new brand of
beer. The fact that Dutch adults and children use much less marijuana than
we do is an indication that non-coercive social norms are far more powerful
than prohibition, which replaces personal responsibility with government
paternalism.

The war on marijuana has made the Salem witch trials look small and
scientific by comparison. The witch trials were over in less than a year
and took 19 lives, while the war on marijuana is in its 63rd year and has
ruined the lives and families of millions. This one drug ties up a third of
the criminal justice system. The 80 percent increase in marijuana arrests
since 1993 has produced more annual arrests than for murder, rape, robbery
and aggravated assault all put together. Our hypocrisy relative to our own
alcohol use and the use of false or exaggerated propaganda about marijuana
has undermined the credibility of all drug education and grossly diminished
respect for the law.

False Criminals

Incredibly, this one misguided law has placed the label "criminal" on over
half our young adults. If we subtract the 30 percent of teens who rarely
even use alcohol, then almost four out of every five high school seniors
have already used marijuana--just as our nations political leaders did.

1995 and again in 1998, The Lancet, one of the world's leading medical
journals, editorialized in favor or legalized marijuana. "Based on the
medical evidence available," it said, "moderate indulgence in cannabis has
little ill-effect on health...Sooner or later politicians will have to stop
running scared and address the evidence: Cannabis per se is not a hazard to
society, but driving in further underground may well be."

Marijuana accounts for some 80 percent of all illegal drug use, and its
prohibition has created dramatic public misperceptions about the size and
nature of our drug problem as a whole.

I assume that legalization would be much like that for alcohol but would
include a ban on public use and advertising. The moment we clarify the
problem and end this enormous drain on our money, energy and credibility is
the moment we begin to deal with all the other aspect of drug policy far
more effectively.