CHANGE DRUG POLICY

Re Leonard Pitts' June 15 column, Time to end drug war: The White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy immediately rejected the
high profile Global Commission on Drug Policy call for reform and
defended the federal government's drug control efforts.

These 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 during the past four years.
Despite criminal penalties, the United States has higher rates of drug
use than European Union countries such as Portugal that have
decriminalized.

With the national debt soaring, we can no longer afford to throw good
money after bad drug policy.

Robert Sharpe

Policy Analyst

Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.