DON'T WASTE OUR MONEY, LEGALIZE POT

LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- The New Mexico State Legislature may be forced to cut
back on the lottery scholarship program due to lack of funding.

Universities across the country are being forced to cut men's athletics
programs due to lack of funding and government imposed Title IX sanctions.

I can't afford to pay my parking tickets.

All this going on in the world and the federal government can't help a
brother out? They have the money.

Instead they would rather spend $17.9 billion in 2000 to continue their
less-than-successful "War on Drugs." $17.9 BILLION! On a "war" the
government is losing! Not only are they losing the war, they're getting
their asses kicked!

That's not even my main gripe, though. A few ass-kickings make us all better
people, at least that's what my parents used to tell me. The problem isn't
that the government is losing their "war," the problem is they're using the
wrong tactics to fight the "war."

First off, let it be known that I'm one of those Birkenstock-wearing,
liberal, tree-hugging-hippies that thinks marijuana should be legal (except
for the tree-hugging-hippie part). I do not, however, smoke marijuana. I had
my run with the stuff back in high school. I liked it. Then I realized I
didn't like it. Now I don't do it. Its that simple.

I think its really easy for people to sit up on their pedestal and look down
on people who smoke marijuana. Last Thursday, the Round Up's News Editor
wrote about her video game playing pot-head friends who waste their life
away because of marijuana addiction. People seem to think marijuana makes
you slow and dysfunctional. Well then, I better write this editorial extra
slow because all my pot-head, hippie friends can't read fast.

The fact of the matter is marijuana doesn't cause nearly as much harm as
smoking or drinking and, unlike smoking and alcohol, marijuana doesn't cause
a serious health risk to non-users. Marijuana has yet to kill a single
person. If the FDA lost all their records and had to re-write the list of
legal and banned substances and marijuana, tobacco and alcohol were all
under consideration, marijuana would be the only one of the three legalized.

If people want to get a little high, so be it. If they aren't out killing
people and they're in the privacy of their own homes, the government needs
to mind their own business.

Now, back to the government. The primary drug targeted in their "war" is
marijuana. So far in 2000 (72 short days) the government has already
arrested 310,000 people on drug offenses, the bulk of which are possession
of marijuana arrests. On Feb. 15, the United States federal prisons system
opened their doors to their 2 millionth prisoner. 60 percent of federal
prisoners are drug offenders. 2.5 percent are incarcerated for violent
crimes. Do you have any idea how much tax payer dollars it costs to feed a
pot head in prison when he has the munchies? These dollars aren't included
in the war on drugs budget. Of the $17.9 billion spent on the drug war, 70
percent goes to the enforcement and the legal expense side of the "war" and
30 percent goes to treatment and prevention. What kind of sense does that
make?

Now before you start putting on all your "Just Say No" buttons and come
breaking down my door for an intervention, let me make it clear to everyone
that I don't think all drugs should be legal. Just marijuana. Not cocaine,
not heroin and not acid. Just marijuana.

Of course, according to pedestal-sitting, government-propaganda-believing
anti-marijuana people, all those other drugs are soon to follow because
marijuana is a "gateway drug." Well, let me tell you, there are just about
as many studies from "expert witnesses" that have not found pot to be a
gateway drug to all these other drugs. Of course we don't hear about those
studies because the government wants to make marijuana look like the devil
so they don't feel guilty about wasting all our tax dollars fighting it. All
the while, Senators and Legislatures are sitting in their chambers, smoking
joints, trying to relax after a long stressful day of wasting our money.

If the government wants to start a war on something, why not cut the $17.9
million dollar war on drugs budget in half, make marijuana legal, impose
some kind of tax on people who sell it, and spend all that money on
something a whole lot more worthwhile, like paying my parking tickets.