LOSING WAR ON WEED

Regarding your July 4 editorial on marijuana cultivation in national
parks:

The drug war is in large part a war on marijuana, by far the most
popular illicit drug. Punitive marijuana laws have little, if any,
deterrent value.

The University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future Study reports that
lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the United States than any
European country, yet America is one of the few western countries that
uses its criminal justice system to punish citizens who prefer
marijuana to martinis.

Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose
death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. The
short-term health effects of marijuana are inconsequential compared to
the long-term effects of criminal records. Unfortunately, marijuana
represents the counterculture to many Americans. In subsidizing the
prejudices of culture warriors, the U.S. government is subsidizing
organized crime.

The drug war's distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand make
easily grown weed literally worth its weight in gold. The only clear
winners in the war on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless
tough-on-drugs politicians who have built careers on confusing drug
prohibition's collateral damage with a relatively harmless plant.

The big losers in this battle are the American taxpayers who have been
deluded into believing big government is the appropriate response to
non-traditional consensual vices.

Robert Sharpe,

Common Sense for Drug Policy,

Washington, D.C.