LET'S FOLLOW BRITAIN'S LEAD AND RELAX MARIJUANA LAWS

The British took a big leap forward recently, announcing a plan to
downgrade marijuana's status as an illegal drug.

Instead of treating pot like much harder drugs, such as cocaine and
heroin, Prime Minister Tony Blair's government will push a proposal to
put it more on par with, say, steroids.

Instead of arresting people who're caught with small amounts of
marijuana, the police in most cases will simply confiscate the drugs
and give the offender a warning. The point is to free the police to
concentrate on more serious crimes, government officials said.

With this latest move, Britain is finally getting more in step with
the rest of Western Europe, where only a handful of Scandinavian
countries still treat marijuana smoking as a crime. In Spain,
Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands, they don't arrest marijuana
users; in Spain, and Portugal, not even hard-drug use is a crime.

The United States should emulate its closest ally. Enough finger-
pointing at the decadent Dutch, with their pot shops and needle parks.
We'd be in the same league as the normally strait-laced Brits. A less
flexible drug policy hasn't served the British well, as they have one
of the highest drug-death rates in Western Europe. So it's time to
try something more sensible.

And because Blair cozies up to George W. Bush on most things, maybe
he could whisper in the president's ear that we have one of the most
senseless drug policies in the world.

In 2000, the last year for which the FBI has crime statistics, 743,000
people were arrested for marijuana offenses, 88 percent of them for
simple possession. Before Rudolph Giuliani became mayor, fewer than
800 marijuana arrests were being made in New York City each year.
After his crackdown on so-called quality-of-life crimes, the number
skyrocketed to 52,000.

If, as current Mayor Mike Bloomberg admits, he has not only smoked
marijuana, but really enjoyed it, should New York City continue
arresting 50,000 people a year for doing the same thing?

Marijuana does not have the same connection to violence and crime that
alcohol has, or the link to addiction, sickness and death that tobacco
does. Yet alcohol and tobacco are legal - because so many Americans
like to smoke and drink, and because these drugs support huge
industries. Yet marijuana, a mild intoxicant that's associated with
teen-agers and younger adults, is treated like the drug from hell.

Drugs are the third rail of U.S. politics, and few politicians are
willing to call for changes in the current drug policy for fear of
being called soft on drugs and soft on crime. Yet most politicians
are out of step with the American public.

A recent Zogby poll asked, in light of the more pressing concerns
caused by Sept. 11, if Americans favored arresting and jailing people
for smoking marijuana. Sixty-one percent said they do not.

Twelve states have stopped arresting people who are caught with
marijuana in public, and Nevada has a voters' initiative on the ballot
this fall that could give it the most progressive marijuana policy in
the nation. It would legalize possession of up to 3 ounces, authorize
the state to open state-licensed marijuana shops and make marijuana
available cheaply for medical purposes.

The big obstacle is the federal law that forbids the use or possession
or sale of marijuana, and even its use for medical reasons. The
federal government should get out of the way and let the states adopt
more reasonable policies, if they see fit. And the states, in short,
should follow the Brits.