LEGALIZING POT COULD CUT CRIME

I'm writing about the column: "It is time for some frank talk about
legalizing marijuana."

Suppose another country had almost no drug problem. Suppose that
country had less than a small fraction of one percent of our drug
arrests. And suppose that country had almost no "drug-related crime,"
and suppose that their robbery rate was a tiny fraction of our robbery
rate.

There is such a country: The Czech Republic. The Czech Republic is the
only country in the world where adult citizens can legally use,
possess and grow small quantities of marijuana. The Czech overall drug
arrest rate is 1 per 100,000 population. The United States' overall
drug arrest rate is 585 per 100,000 population. The Czech robbery rate
is 2 per 100,000 population. The United States' robbery rate is 160.2
per 100,000 population, according to our FBI.

According to our drug war cheerleaders, tolerant marijuana laws cause
people to use other, much more dangerous drugs, like methamphetamine
and heroin. Obviously, this doesn't happen in the Czech Republic.
Could it be that when people can legally obtain marijuana at an
affordable price, they tend not to use other recreational drugs? Could
it be that marijuana legalization creates a roadblock to hard drug
use?

KIRK MUSE

Mesa, Ariz