ANTI-POT LAWS INEFFECTUAL, COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

Dear Editor,

Kudos to Rich Page for an excellent Oct. 1st op-ed. The drug war is in
large part a war on marijuana, by far the most popular illicit drug.
Punitive marijuana laws have little, if any, deterrent value. 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 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 who have been deluded into
believing big government is the appropriate response to non-traditional
consensual vices. Students who want to help end the intergenerational
culture war otherwise known as the war on some drugs should contact
Students for Sensible Drug Policy at www.ssdp.org

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

Sincerely,

Robert Sharpe, MPA

policy analyst

Common Sense for Drug Policy