RIDICULOUS MARIJUANA LAWS

Regarding a recent editorial published in your newspaper ("The grass
is starting to look greener," Scripps Howard News Service, July 20),
if health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms,
marijuana would be legal.

Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose
death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Like any
drug, marijuana can be harmful if abused, but jail cells are
inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican
immigration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the
American Medical Association. Dire warnings that marijuana inspires
homicidal rages have been counterproductive at best. White Americans
did not even begin to smoke pot until a soon-to-be entrenched federal
bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda.

Marijuana prohibition has failed miserably as a deterrent. The United
States has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where
marijuana is legally available to adults over 18. The only clear
winners in the war on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless
tough-on-drugs politicians who've built careers confusing the drug
war's collateral damage with a relatively harmless plant.

Robert Sharpe

Policy Analyst

Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.