DRUG POLICY RESULTS REVEAL TRUE PICTURE

RE DUNCAN Hamilton's column headlined "War on drugs has also become a
war on free thinking" (Insight, 5 June). The Global Commission on Drug
Policy's groundbreaking report criticised the United States government
for promoting global drug war.

Here in the United States, the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy immediately rejected the Global Commission on Drug
Policy's call for reform and defended the "balanced drug control
efforts" of the US government.

These "balanced" efforts have given the land of the free the highest
incarceration rate in the world. Prohibition-related violence has
caused upwards of 35,000 deaths in Mexico over the past four years.
Despite criminal penalties, the US has higher rates of drug use than
European Union countries like Portugal that have decriminalised.

Scotland should "Just Say No" to the American inquisition.

Robert Sharpe

Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy

Arlington, Virginia