DRUG FREE OR FREE COUNTRY?

Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale seems to think waging a global war
against politically incorrect plants can win the drug war. U.S. military
intervention in Colombia could very well spread coca production and civil
war throughout South America. Destroy the Colombian coca crop and
production will boom in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. Destroy every last plant
in South America and domestic methamphetamine production will increase to
meet the demand for cocaine-like drugs.

The self-professed champions of the free market in Congress are seemingly
incapable of applying basic economic principles to drug policy. The failed
drug war threatens the integrity of a country founded on the concept of
limited government. The steady rise in warrantless police searches,
drug-sniffing dogs in schools and random drug testing have led to a loss of
civil liberties in America, while failing miserably at preventing drug use.
Based on findings that criminal records are inappropriate as health
interventions and ineffective as deterrents, a majority of European Union
countries have decriminalized marijuana. Despite marijuana prohibition and
perhaps because of forbidden fruit appeal, lifetime use of marijuana is
higher in the United States than any European country.

The United States now has the highest incarceration rate in the world, in
large part due to the war on some drugs. At an average cost of $25,071 per
inmate annually, maintaining the world's largest prison system can hardly
be considered fiscally conservative. It's not possible to wage a moralistic
war against consensual vices unless privacy is completely eliminated, along
with the Constitution. America can either be a free country or a
"drug-free" country, but not both.

Robert Sharpe, program officer, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, D.C.