LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

Regarding George Will's column "A Look at a Rocky Mountain Medical
High": Legal pot would be better than medical pot, better, even, than
decriminalized pot, because it would dry up the street market by
taking out its humongous profit.

Anyone who has passed Economics 100 knows the law of supply and
demand. We saw it at work in the 1920s when we arrested bootleggers
but not drinkers. The 1920s was a time of decriminalized alcohol,
although we didn't call it that. The street violence ended only when
we quit arresting bootleggers.

But the best reason for legalization is to clear the air of the
distortions, outright lies and ignorance being displayed by both sides
of the war on pot. If it were legal, the Food and Drug Admini-stration
could do unbiased research, blocked for decades by the Drug
En-forcement Administration. Patients could make informed decisions on
whether to smoke pot, kids couldn't fake illness to get prescriptions
to get pot, and adults wouldn't need to.

By John Chase

Palm Harbor, Fla.