STOP MAKING CRIMINALS OUT OF POT SMOKERS

In support of the comments last week by Juliet Hotchkiss ("Marijuana
safer than alcohol"), the war on drugs is over. It failed. It wasn't
just a huge failure, it was a catastrophic failure. We've been at it
for over 30 years at a cumulative cost of hundreds of billions of
dollars and usage rates are actually higher now than they were when we started.

Prohibition has never been an effective strategy to discourage any
psychotropic or mind altering substance use. It's not just that it
just doesn't work--the resulting black market insidiously spreads
corruption well beyond the drug's impact on any individual user.

We arrest 800,000 pot users a year. Enforcement costs average about
$500 per arrest. It costs about $30,000 per year to incarcerate a
user. Our prisons currently hold more than 530,000 drug offenders.

Four lobbies account for the greatest pressure on lawmakers to
maintain existing drug penalties: the pharmacy lobby, the liquor
lobby, the cigarette lobby and private prison corporations.

Changing the restrictions on drug use requires fact based solutions,
not ideological or political positions. By any objective measure the
prohibition on cannabis produces effects in our society far worse
than any health issue. Pot smokers are not dangerous to themselves or
anyone else. We need to stop making criminals of people who smoke pot, now.

Ron Evans

Oak Park