MARIJUANA LAWS DRACONIAN

Marijuana prohibition has done little other than burden millions of
otherwise law-abiding citizens with criminal records.

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 use its criminal justice system to punish citizens who prefer
marijuana to martinis.

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, government is
subsidizing organized crime.

The drug war's distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand
causes big money to grow on little trees. The only clear winners in
the war on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless tough-on-drugs
politicians who've built careers confusing drug prohibition's
collateral damage with a relatively harmless plant.

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

Students who want to help end the intergenerational culture war
otherwise known as the war on some drugs should contact Students for
Sensible Drug Policy at SchoolsNotPrisons.com.

- -Robert Sharpe, policy analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy Washington, D.C.