FAILURE

Calamitous 'Drug War'

TWENTY years ago, 41,000 Americans were in prison on drug charges. Today,
the number is nearly 500,000.

The national "war on drugs" has cost taxpayers billions, has ruined many
young people and their families - and hasn't reduced U.S. drug usage a whit.

The police blitzkrieg is tinged with racism. Human Rights Watch says only
13 percent of U.S. drug users are black, but 63 percent of drug offenders
sentenced to prison are black. Several studies have found that police,
prosecutors, courts and juries treat blacks more harshly, giving them cell
time while whites get probation for the same offenses.

Politicians still love to look stern and tell everyone they're "tough" on
drugs. This stance is a sure vote-getter. But is it beneficial to America?
Maybe it's time to try a more intelligent approach.

As we've said many times, marijuana is less harmful than tobacco or alcohol
- - two drugs that are legal, even though they kill hundreds of thousands of
Americans every year. Looking at it objectively, it's absurd to jail
pot-sellers while considering sellers of cigarettes and booze honorable
business executives. America's sense of right and wrong is wrong.

Criminalizing marijuana has the same effect as criminalizing alcohol did
during Prohibition: It fills prisons and causes ruinous expense, without
eliminating the "evil" product.

Many Americans are beginning to see the folly of the harsh war on drugs. In
the Nov. 7 elections, five states repudiated parts of it. California voters
strongly decreed that nonviolent users should be sent to treatment, not to
prison. Experts say this will free 36,000 Californians from cells, save
$500 million in prison construction costs, and save $225 million a year in
prison operating costs. In Mendocino County, voters even decided that
puffers can grow their own marijuana legally - although federal law still
makes it a prison offense.

Also, Colorado and Nevada joined six other states in voting to let illness
sufferers use pot for pain relief. And Utah and Oregon voted to reduce the
police custom of seizing cars, homes, boats, airplanes and other
possessions from drug-sellers.

The Economist of London recently said of the U.S. war on narcotics: "That
misguided policy has put millions of people behind bars, cost billions,
encouraged crime and spread corruption while failing completely to reduce
drug abuse."

Last year, a report concluded that marijuana is West Virginia's most
valuable agricultural crop, exceeding all others combined. Wouldn't it make
more sense to reap the economic gain from this crop instead of throwing the
growers in prison at great taxpayer expense?