TIME TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA AND TAX IT

Recent articles and letters about a proposal to further raise
Wisconsin's cigarette tax got me thinking.

Despite almost 70 years of marijuana prohibition and nearly 800,000
arrests per year, most for simple possession, the cannabis market
continues to grow. The report concluded cannabis should be taxed and
regulated, like we do now with tobacco and alcohol.

This is not a new idea, and coincidentally, the report comes just days
after the death of former Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond Shafer.

A conservative Republican, Shafer had chaired President Richard
Nixon's commission on marijuana. The commission concluded marijuana
users "are essentially indistinguishable from their nonmarijuana using
peers by any fundamental criterion other than their marijuana use."

They also found, "Neither the marijuana user nor the drug itself can
be said to constitute a danger to public safety."

Unfortunately, as we all know, Nixon's response was to reject the
report and launch a full-blown war on pot smokers now in its fourth
decade.

Today, we are still trodding down Nixon's dark road. Our prisons are
jammed, our civil liberties are under siege, and even sick people are
fair game in what has been for years our longest war. Still, as far
down this wrong road as we are today, it is never too late to turn
back.

In a world facing global warming, natural disasters, pandemics,
terrorism, poverty and starvation, how can anyone say pot prohibition
should be any kind of priority? Not only does it offer economic
benefits and the creation of new jobs from farmers to cannabis
baristas, but also safer communities with cannabis as a safer
substitute for alcohol.

Tax and regulate and let the cannabis industry blossom.

Gary Storck,

co-founder of Madison NORML