DRUG CARTELS WIN THE WAR ON MARIJUANA

I'm not surprised to read that brazen thieves stole 500 pounds of marijuana
from the evidence room in the state Highway Patrol office on U.S. 301. The
drug war's distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand make an easily
grown weed literally worth its weight in gold. The only clear winners in
the war on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless tough-on-drugs
politicians who've built careers on confusing drug prohibition's collateral
damage with a relatively harmless plant.

Punitive marijuana laws have little, if any, deterrent value. Lifetime use
of marijuana is higher in the United States than any European country, yet
the United States is one of the few Western countries that uses its
criminal justice system to punish citizens who prefer marijuana to
martinis. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an
overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco.

Marijuana can be harmful if abused, but criminal records are hardly
appropriate health interventions. Unfortunately, marijuana represents the
counterculture to misguided reactionaries intent on legislating their
version of morality.

In subsidizing the prejudices of culture warriors, the U.S. government is
inadvertently subsidizing organized crime. The big losers in this battle
are the taxpayers deluded into believing big government is the appropriate
response to non-traditional consensual vices.

Robert Sharpe

Program officer, Drug Policy Alliance

Washington, D.C.