YES ON MEASURE 2

To the editor:

Concerns about the health of our citizens or about their productivity
are red herrings in the debate over the legalization of marijuana. The
fact that people are being prosecuted and imprisoned for using
marijuana while alcohol remains a staple commodity is absurd.

Alcohol is the more dangerous substance. A lethal dose is easily
achieved. Its role in causing automobile accidents is beyond dispute.
It contributes to human violence, personal injury, unplanned
pregnancy, and the spread of sexual disease. Alcohol is also
addictive. More than 100,000 people every year die from its use. It is
also more toxic to a developing fetus than any other drug of abuse.

None of these charges can be leveled at marijuana. As a drug,
marijuana is nearly unique in having several medical applications and
no known lethal dosage. Marijuana kills no one. Its role as a "gateway
drug" now seems less plausible than ever (it never was plausible). In
fact, nearly everything human beings do--driving cars, flying planes,
hitting golf balls, is more dangerous than smoking marijuana in the
privacy of one's own home.

Our prohibition of certain substances has led thousands of otherwise
productive and law-abiding men and women to be locked away for decades
on a stretch, sometimes for life. Each year, over 1.5 million men and
women are arrested in the U.S. because of our drug laws. At this
moment, over 400,000 men and women languish in U.S. prisons for
nonviolent drug offenses. One million others are currently on probation.

The cost of these efforts at the federal level alone is $20 billion
annually. The total cost of our drug laws' expense to both state and
local government and the tax revenue lost by our failure to regulate
the sale of drugs could easily be $100 billion. Our war on drugs
consumes an estimated 50 percent of the trial time of our courts and
the full time energies of over 400,000 police officers, a waste of
resources that could otherwise be used to fight violent crime and
terrorism. Please join me in voting yes on Proposition 2.

Karl Schroeder

Fairbanks