SENSIBLE SOLUTIONS FOR DRUGS

Kudos to Alex Adwan for his excellent column on the failed drug war ("Are
we losing the `war on drugs?' "). Drug offenses account for the majority of
federal incarcerations. At an average cost of $25,071 per inmate annually,
maintaining the world's largest prison system is hardly fiscally
conservative. Compared to deadly alcohol and addictive tobacco, marijuana
is relatively harmless. Yet marijuana prohibition is deadly. There is
nothing inherent in marijuana that compels users to try harder drugs;
however, its black-market status puts users in contact with criminals who
push them. Current drug policy is effectively a gateway policy. With no
controls for age, the thriving black market is very much youth-oriented.
Sensible regulation is desperately needed to undermine the black market and
restrict access to drugs.

The Netherlands has managed to greatly reduce 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 ultimately do a better job of protecting children
than the drug war.

Robert Sharpe, Washington, D.C.

Robert Sharpe, MPA, is program officer for The Lindesmith Center-Drug
Policy Foundation.