'TRAFFIC' SCHOOL: LESSONS IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

In discussing heroin addiction, Kleber claims that legalization would
destroy even more lives. Perhaps, but I don't think anyone in the drug
policy reform movement wants to see TV advertisements calling upon viewers
to run down to the local convenience store to buy heroin.

There are cost-effective alternatives to the zero-tolerance approach. The
Netherlands has successfully reduced overall drug use by separating the
hard- and soft-drug markets and establishing controls for age.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, replacing marijuana prohibition with
regulation would do a better job protecting children from drugs than the
failed drug war. Marijuana is the most popular illicit drug. Compared to
legal alcohol, marijuana is relatively harmless. Yet marijuana prohibition
is deadly. Although there is nothing inherent in marijuana that compels
users to try hard drugs, its black market status puts users in contact with
criminals who push them.

Current drug policy is effectively a gateway policy. Sensible regulation is
desperately needed to undermine the black market. Unfortunately for
Americans, our leaders are more prone to counterproductive preaching than
pragmatism.

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