DRUG WAR OFF-TARGET

In response to Mike Seate's column "Jailing peaceful druggies big
waste" (April 21 and TribLIVE.com): 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 in 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.

The short-term health effects of marijuana are inconsequential
compared with 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 are the taxpayers who have been deluded into
believing big government is the appropriate response to
nontraditional consensual vices.

Robert Sharpe

Washington, D.C.

The writer is a policy analyst for Common Sense for Drug Policy, a
nonprofit advocacy organization (csdp.org).