MARIJUANA LAWS IN THE VARIOUS STATES

Your article asserts that "use did go up in the Netherlands,
particularly among youths, when laws were liberalized there," as if
that's evidence that the change in laws caused that increase. How,
then, do you explain that in the U.S., where marijuana was legal until
1937, use went up only after we banned marijuana, according to U.S.
government estimates?

That's right. For several decades now, marijuana use in the U.S. has
been running at a level roughly 4,000 percent higher than when
marijuana was fully legal.

In fact, marijuana prohibition has done little, if anything, to curb
use. What it has done is put production and distribution of this very
popular product almost entirely in the hands of unregulated criminals,
causing harm that is obvious to anyone with open eyes.

Bruce Mirken, San Francisco

The writer is director of communications for the Marijuana Policy
Project in Washington, D.C.