POT AT THE TEA PARTY

(Re: "Pot at the Tea Party," Danish Plan, April 22.) Tea Partyers who
truly believe in liberty and limited government oppose the war on some drugs.

The drug war is in large part a war on marijuana, by far the most
popular illicit drug. Marijuana prohibition has failed miserably as a
deterrent. Lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the United States
than any European Union 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 in this battle are the taxpayers, who have been deluded
into believing big government is the appropriate response to
nontraditional consensual vices.

Robert Sharpe, Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.