PROHIBITION HURTS TAXPAYERS, ENRICHES CARTELS

Your Mar. 10 editorial correctly noted that the Obama administration
will not like state Senate proposals to commercialize marijuana
cultivation.

Medical marijuana is a threat to the prohibition paradigm. The feds
would seemingly prefer to protect organized crime rather than allow an
alternative regulatory model to generate new tax revenue. Marijuana
prohibition hurts taxpayers, youth and the millions of otherwise
law-abiding citizens who have been criminalized for preferring
marijuana to martinis.

The No. 1 product of Mexican drug cartels is marijuana. An estimated
35,000 Mexicans have died in prohibition-related violence over the
past few years. Marijuana prohibition opens a gateway to hard drugs.
As long as cartels control distribution, marijuana consumers will be
exposed to methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin.

Unlike alcohol or prescription narcotics, marijuana has never been
shown to cause an overdose death. Marijuana may be relatively
harmless, but marijuana prohibition is deadly.

Robert Sharpe

(Sharpe is a policy analyst with Common Sense for Drug Policy.)