SHERIFF'S POINTS HAVE MERIT

County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek has good reason to question the wisdom
of zero tolerance marijuana laws ("White responds to marijuana
ideas," Feb. 10). The University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future
Study reports that lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the U.S.
than any European country, yet America is one of the few Western
countries that uses its criminal justice system to punish citizens
who prefer marijuana to martinis. 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 make an easily-grown weed literally worth
its weight in gold. The only clear winners in the war on marijuana
are drug cartels and shameless tough-on-drugs politicians who've
built careers on 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 non-traditional consensual vices.

Robert Sharpe

Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.