MARIJUANA PROHIBITION RESEMBLES 55-MPH LIMIT

As a retired police officer, I understand where my colleague, DEA
agent Dunlap (Dec. 20 guest opinion), is coming from regarding
marijuana prohibition. I enforced the 55 mph speed limit my entire
18-year career. It was a bad law and generated huge amounts of
disrespect for law, as tens of millions of citizens circumvented the
law by buying radar detectors.

Marijuana prohibition is quite similar; 100 million have smoked it,
though none has died as a result.

DEA Dunlap defends prohibition because it is his paycheck on the line.
Without the prohibition of drugs, he is on the street looking for a
job in a bad economy.

He knows that tobacco and alcohol will kill at a roughly 40-to-1 ratio
vs. illegal drugs. How dangerous a drug can be has never been the
issue. Follow the money.

Officer Howard J. Wooldridge (retired)

education specialist, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Washington, D.C.