TODAY'S VERSION OF AMERICAN BATHTUB GIN

During the disastrous US experiment with alcohol Prohibition, consumers
went blind drinking unregulated bathtub gin. The Ecstasy knockoff known as
PMA that has been taking the lives of young Florida residents is today's
version of bathtub gin. They thought they were buying Ecstasy, but the
volatile black market has no controls for quality or age. The drug war
fails miserably at its primary mandate, protecting children from drugs.
Sensible regulation is desperately needed to undermine the black market and
restrict access to drugs.

Cannabis is the most popular illicit drug. Compared to legal drugs like
alcohol and tobacco, cannabis is relatively harmless. Yet cannabis
prohibition is deadly. While there is nothing inherent in cannabis that
compels users to try deadly hard drugs, its black-market status puts users
in contact with criminals who push them.

As long as cannabis remains illegal, the established criminal distribution
network will ensure that children sample every new poison concocted by
pushers. Current drug policy is effectively gateway policy. As
counterintuitive as it may seem, replacing cannabis prohibition with
regulation would ultimately do a better job protecting children from drugs
than the failed drug war.

Robert Sharpe, Program Officer, Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation,
Washington, DC.