WHAT OTHER NEWSPAPERS ARE SAYING

Let's Rethink The War On Drugs

Springfield (Ohio) News Sun:

Like most other states, Ohio has emphasized punishment as a means of
dealing with the drug epidemic. Lawmakers have mandated long sentences
for people who sell or use drugs, and for those who commit other
crimes to support drug habits. As a result, the state has spent
hundreds of millions of dollars building the cells needed to house an
ever-increasing prison population.

Ohio must turn around its spending priorities in dealing with drug
abuse. It cannot and should not abandon the fight against drug crimes,
but that effort should be reorganized.

Prison cells ought to be reserved for the kingpins and other dealers
who are getting rich off the suffering of others. The use of drug
courts should be instituted so court dockets won't be clogged with the
cases of casual users and addicts who need counseling and treatment
rather than incarceration.

Light Up In New Mexico

Albuquerque Journal:

Twenty-one years ago, New Mexico became the first state to initiate a
pilot program that ultimately concluded what a federal study stated
only this past week: Marijuana can relieve suffering for some ill or
terminally ill patients, and that legalizing it for medicinal use
would not lead to widespread abuse.

U.S. drug policy director Barry McCaffrey hailed the National Academy
of Sciences' Institute of Medicine report as "the most comprehensive
analysis of medical marijuana ever done" and supported its
conclusions--a significant endorsement considering McCaffrey had
commissioned the study to support opposition to medical marijuana
initiatives in California, Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

Congress should change this view to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule
II drug. This change acknowledges a legitimate medical use, allowing
doctors to prescribe it under tightly-controlled conditions, just as
they can prescribe cocaine, morphine and other drugs with high
potential for abuse.