WHAT WOULD JESUS DO IN TEEN BONG-HITS CASE?

This is regarding the editorial titled "Free speech goes one for two,"
published July 4. The Supreme Court should take a cue from the
nonsensical banner that inspired its decision to limit student free
speech. It might do the justices some good to take a few bong hits for
Jesus.

Before sacrificing more civil liberties at the altar of the drug war,
they should ask themselves, what would Jesus do? Would Jesus
persecute, incarcerate and deny forgiveness to nonviolent drug
offenders? Zero tolerance is decidedly un-Christian.

Morally, the drug war is wrong. On a practical level, the drug war is
an abject failure. According to the FBI, there were 786,545 marijuana
arrests in 2005, the vast majority for simple possession. America is
one of the few Western countries that punish citizens who prefer
marijuana to martinis, yet lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the
United States than any European country.

Thanks to the war on some drugs, the Constitution is increasingly
irrelevant and the land of the free now has the highest incarceration
rate in the world. This is not a policy worthy of constitutional
exemptions. The drug war has failed to keep drugs out of prisons, much
less schools.

The Supreme Court should prioritize protecting civil liberties over
perpetuating drug war failure.

Editor's note: The writer is a policy analyst with Common Sense for
Drug Policy.

Robert Sharpe

Washington