CRIMINAL RECORDS DON'T CURB DRUG USE

To The Editor:

While criticizing marijuana law reform in neighboring
Canada in "Cold front barrels north on Canada's GI stand" (May 17, p.
2), Bill O'Reilly makes the common mistake of assuming that punitive
laws actually reduce use. The University of Michigan's Monitoring the
Future Study reports 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 still using 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 makes
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 taxpayers who have been deluded into
believing that big government is the appropriate response to
non-traditional consensual vices. Robert Sharpe ARLINGTON, VA.

Editor's note: Robert Sharpe is a political analyst at Common Sense
for Drug Policy.