MARIJUANA LAWS NEED A NEW LOOK

Don Erler's Tuesday column ("Let those thoughts on government soar")
was right on target. Marijuana prohibition has done little more than
to burden millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens with criminal records.

The University of Michigan's "Monitoring the Future" study reported
that lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the United States than in
any European country, yet America is one of the few Western countries
that 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, government is
subsidizing crime.

The drug war's distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand make
an easily grown weed 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 confusing
drug prohibition's collateral damage with a relatively harmless
plant. The big losers are the taxpayers who've been deluded into
believing big government is the appropriate response to
non-traditional, consensual vices.

- -- Robert Sharpe, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington