MAKING THE CASE AGAINST LEGALIZATION

Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico told reporters last year that he would
legalize marijuana and heroin. Gov. Johnson's comments continue to make
waves; he was lauded in Matthew Miller's column (BDN, Aug. 23) and was the
subject of a recent New York Times Magazine story (Aug. 20).

Gov. Johnson argues that the "war against drugs" is a failure because we
spend a fortune on drug control yet drugs are still available and 80
million Americans have tried them. He points out that we're spending huge
amounts of money incarcerating marijuana users. Gov. Johnson's solution is
to stop getting tough with drugs and legalize them.

I fundamentally disagree with Gov. Johnson's belief that drugs should be
legalized, and I think his argument is logically flawed. I agree with Gov.
Johnson that we need to devote more resources toward prevention, education
and treatment, and I agree that jailing marijuana users is an ineffective
use of resources. But I think it would be a grave mistake to legalize any
more drugs.

Legalization advocates point out that 450,000 people died last year from
smoking cigarettes, 150,000 died as a consequence of drinking alcohol, and
100,000 died from legal prescription drugs, but few if any died from
marijuana and only 5,000 died from cocaine and heroin. But these statistics
are strong support for keeping marijuana, cocaine and heroin illegal.

Cigarettes and alcohol are Exhibits A and B in the case against
legalization. Some 50 million Americans are addicted to cigarettes and 28
million Americans have alcohol problems. These problems cost our society
roughly $220 billion each year. Among young people, 90 percent have used
cigarettes or alcohol.

The linchpin in drug use theory is availability. Around 60 percent of our
young people have used marijuana. If we were to make a drug like marijuana
legally available, as cigarettes and alcohol are, we could expect to see
use rates rise to climb to about 90 percent.

Legalization advocates incorrectly claim that marijuana is a harmless drug.
First, marijuana (like cigarettes and alcohol) is considered a gateway
drug. People addicted to drugs like heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and
hallucinogens almost always started with cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana
before they "advanced" to harder drugs. Second, even if users did stop at
marijuana, it is simply not a harmless drug. In the 1990s we spent an
extraordinary amount of money educating people about the harmful health
effects of smoking. We have severely penalized the tobacco industry for
pushing cigarettes on people, and we are beginning to make that industry
accountable for the harm it has done. How ironic that we rail against the
evils of tobacco and at the same time consider legalization of marijuana,
which produces similar, if not worse, carcinogenic and other adverse health
effects.

Fortunately, Gov. Johnson has backed off his initial call to legalize
heroin. Making heroin more widely available would have devastating
consequences to our society. Cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana are not
immediately addictive to most people and the health consequences associated
with them are often chronic, not instantaneous. Heroin is highly addictive,
and, all too often, lethal.

Many people have asked me recently why I feel so strongly about drugs. The
answer is that I have seen — up close and too many times — the devastating
consequences that drugs have on the people who use them and on their
families. The short and simple answer to legalization is that we have
enough problems with cigarettes and alcohol. Let's not compound our
problems and legalize any more drugs.