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Dear Editor,

Tristan Meyer is right about marijuana being illegal for a reason. That
being said, marijuana's illegality has nothing to do with health outcomes.

Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death,
nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco.

America's marijuana laws are based on culture and xenophobia, not science.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican migration
during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical
Association. White Americans did not even begin to smoke marijuana until a
soon-to-be entrenched government bureaucracy began funding reefer madness
propaganda.

Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been
counterproductive at best.

An estimated 38 percent of Americans have now smoked pot.

The reefer madness myths have long been discredited, forcing the drug war
gravy train to spend millions of tax dollars on politicized research,
trying to find harm in a relatively harmless plant. The direct experience
of millions of Americans contradicts the sensationalistic myths used to
justify marijuana prohibition.

Illegal drug use is the only public health issue wherein key stakeholders
are not only ignored, but actively persecuted and incarcerated.

In terms of medical marijuana, those stakeholders happen to be cancer and
AIDS patients.

Students who want to help end the intergenerational culture war otherwise
known as the war on some drugs should contact Students for Sensible Drug
Policy at www.ssdp.org.

Robert Sharpe, M.P.A. Program Officer Drug Policy Alliance

www.drugpolicy.org