END THE ANTI-POT HYSTERIA

In response to Alana Burke's column regarding legalization of
marijuana:

Burke musters the same old tired, discredited arguments. Her fear is
that legalization will foster a disastrous increase in drug use. This
is unlikely. There was no surge in alcohol use or abuse after the
repeal of prohibition. People just kept on doing what they were
already doing.

Prohibition did, however, prove that people will get what they want
regardless of the law, and it also proved that the main beneficiary of
such deluded crusades is organized crime.

The question remains: Which path has the higher social cost? A futile
and costly "war on drugs" that enables the Mexican drug cartels to
harvest billions of dollars, dollars that leave the country entirely,
with the attendant incarceration and ruination of thousands of
harmless drug users at further enormous expense? Or legalization, with
a significant and sorely needed revenue enhancement, plus a chance to
realistically regulate this commerce?

It is far past time to end the hysteria and political manipulation of
this issue and for rationalism to prevail.

Ken Archuleta

Burney