DRUG WAR OBSESSION GONE OVERBOARD

To the editor:

Juan Ochoa is right to point to our obsession with the drug war, and
especially marijuana, as the reason our criminal justice system is so
ineffective.

The U.S. uses about 16 tons of heroin in a year and about 220 tons of
cocaine. Meanwhile, the law struggles to track down the 20,000 tons of
marijuana used each year and mostly grown in the U.S.

Combined with 700,000 annual arrests for marijuana violations -- more than
for all violent crimes -- we have swamped our prisons, police and courts
with no positive results in 30 years. And all over a drug substantially
less dangerous than alcohol.

In June, more than 500 economists, including three Nobel Laureates and
about 20 from various Texas universities, asked the president for open
debate about ending marijuana prohibition. If taxed like alcohol, they
project a combination of national savings and revenue of about $14 billion
per year.

The benefit to Texas would be about 8 percent of that, or $1.1 billion per
year. There's no end to the improvements we could make with that much money.

I hope Faith Wilkinson and other concerned Texans will look at a petition
to the government to promote open discussion at www.dpft.org and decide if
it can help to get our priorities straight.

Jerry Epstein

Houston