DRUG-TERROR ADS KEEP WAR GOING

The drug-terror ads revisited in Allen Finegold's thoughtful March 14
column premiered amid beer commercials during the Super Bowl. International
terrorists have unfortunately caught on to something gangster Al Capone
learned in the 1920s during alcohol prohibition. There are enormous profits
to be made on the black market. With drug war budgets at risk during a time
of shifting national priorities, drug warriors are cynically using drug
prohibition's collateral damage to justify more of the same.

The illicit drug of choice in America is domestically grown marijuana, not
Afghan heroin or Colombian cocaine. The drug czar's sensationalist
terrorism ads may lead Americans to mistakenly conclude that marijuana
smokers are somehow responsible for 9/11. That's likely no accident. Taxing
and regulating marijuana would render the drug war obsolete. As long as
marijuana remains illegal and distributed by organized crime, consumers
will continue to come into contact with hard drugs like cocaine and heroin.
For obvious reasons, government bureaucrats whose jobs depend on a
never-ending drug war prefer to blame the plant itself for the alleged
"gateway" to hard drugs.

Robert Sharpe, Program Officer, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, D.C.