HERE'S WHY LEGALIZING MARIJUANA MAKES SENSE

The call to legalize cannabis continues to grow louder despite all of
the other problems our country is currently facing. Mainstream polls
indicate almost 50 percent of Americans favor full-out legalization,
and nearly 80 percent believe that marijuana should be available for
medicinal purposes.

No one has ever died from simply using marijuana. In 1972,
then-President Richard Nixon appointed the Shafer Commission to study
the nation's rising drug problem. It reported the following: "Neither
the marihuana [sic] user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute
a danger to public safety." The commission's findings have withstood
the test of time.

The more we learn about marijuana, the more benign it becomes.
Marijuana does not cause cancer. Sound scientific studies, such as
those done by UCLA's Dr. Donald Tashkin, have clearly demonstrated
this. We also know that marijuana is legitimate medicine. If marijuana
has no medicinal benefit, why are so many terminally ill patients
turning to it to improve their quality of life? Why, after countless
legislative hearings and initiatives, have 16 states and our nation's
capital legalized marijuana for medicinal use? And why does an
expensive prescription drug called Marinol, which is a synthetic form
of the active ingredient in marijuana, exist? Even the federal
government owns a patent for the medicinal use of marijuana. (The
patent number is 6630507.)

Marijuana is medicine to many people. The Drug Enforcement
Administration's own administrative law judge, Francis L. Young, held
that "marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress
of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under
medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and
capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and
the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this
record." Studies done by the California Center for Medical Cannabis
Research and the recent breakthroughs highlighting the antibacterial
properties of cannabis extracts also clearly demonstrate marijuana's
potential as a natural and inexpensive medicine.

Unlike most medicines, it is quite safe for marijuana to be used
recreationally by responsible and healthy adults. According to the
White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, over 100 million
Americans have tried or use marijuana. If this market were taxed and
regulated, crime rates would go down and agriculturally based
communities would profit. We easily forget how much disrespect for the
law vanished when alcohol prohibition was repealed, or that well over
30,000 Mexican citizens have died since 2006 as a direct result of a
drug war fueled in large part by demand for marijuana, or that the
U.S. has spent approximately a trillion dollars and 100,000 lives on a
drug war that could be reined in considerably with marijuana
legalization.

Regulating marijuana would also protect our children. It is easier for
kids today to get marijuana than it is for them to get alcohol or
tobacco, which is a fact supported by the National Center on Addiction
and Substance Abuse. Drug dealers simply do not ask for ID. Regulation
would also lessen the burden on the criminal justice system, making it
easier to keep violent criminals behind bars. Washington currently has
mandatory minimum sentences for marijuana possession, and the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services reports more people are being
court-ordered into treatment for marijuana than ever before under
threat of incarceration. This is a huge waste of resources.

The legalization movement is not about persuading people to use
marijuana, but for giving the sick and responsible the liberty to
consume a relatively benign product. Proposed policies within the
spirit of the movement are worthy of our consideration.