COMMON MARIJUANA MISTAKE

Your Jan. 3 editorial makes the common mistake of assuming that
punitive marijuana laws actually reduce use. The University of
Michigan's Monitoring the Future Study reports that lifetime use of
marijuana is higher in the United States than any European country,
yet America is one of the few Western countries that still criminalize
citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis.

Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose
death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. The
short-term health effects of marijuana are inconsequential compared to
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 non-traditional
consensual vices.

Robert Sharpe, policy analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy,
Washington, D.C.