DRUG COURT IS A STEP IN RIGHT DIRECTION

The writer is a program officer with the Drug Policy Alliance in
Washington, D.C.

York County's drug court is definitely a step in the right direction. For
nonviolent offenders with chronic substance abuse problems, drug treatment
is a cost-effective alternative to incarceration. Unfortunately, drug
courts are being misused for political purposes. Record numbers of
Americans arrested for marijuana possession have been forced into treatment
by the criminal justice system. The resulting distortion of treatment
statistics is then used by drug czar John Walters to make the claim that
marijuana is "addictive."

Zero tolerance drug laws do not distinguish between occasional use and
chronic abuse. The coercion of Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis
into taxpayer-funded treatment centers says a lot about U.S. government
priorities, but absolutely nothing about the relative harms of marijuana.
For an objective take on marijuana, look to Canada. In the words of Pierre
Claude Nolin, a member of the Canadian Senate, "Scientific evidence
overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than
alcohol and should be treated not as a criminal issue but as a social and
public health issue."

Robert Sharpe

Washington, D.C.