LEGALIZATION OF POT WOULD HELP DRUG WAR

In a recent article by staff writer Leigh Hornbeck, headlined "City
police arrest 10 in drug sales sweep," the Mechanicville chief of
police is reported as saying that he was taken aback by "how easy it
is to buy marijuana, easier than buying cigarettes because of the laws
that prohibit the sale of tobacco to minors."

This is the exact argument I have been using to try to convince
politicians and police that the best way to fight a "drug war" is to
legalize and regulate through the state Health Department or the
Liquor Authority the market for all drugs, but especially marijuana.

But doesn't it make sense, and even by the chief's own admission, that
if it is harder for minors to buy cigarettes due to a legal
marketplace, then the same would hold true for a legal, regulated
marijuana market?

A legal and regulated market would go a long way toward reducing the
prison population and the police time spent enforcing laws that
obviously don't work and would thus reduce the tax burden on
hardworking and, yes, sometimes marijuana-consuming adults.

TIM CASE

Cohoes