TAXPAYERS LOSE IN DRUG WAR

Regarding your Nov. 9th editorial, not only should medical marijuana be
made
available to Massachusetts patients in need, but adult recreational use
should be regulated.

Marijuana prohibition has done little other than burden millions of
otherwise law-abiding citizens with criminal records. The University
of Michigan's Monitoring the Future Study reports that lifetime use
of marijuana is higher in the United States 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. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an
overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco.

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, the U.S.
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 American taxpayers deluded into
believing big government is the appropriate response to
non-traditional consensual vices.

The results of a comparative study of European and U.S. rates of drug
use can be found at: http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/espad_pr.pdf

Robert Sharpe, policy analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.