PEOPLE SHOULDN'T BE FOOLED BY POLITICAL POT SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Editor, Daily Nexus,

Kudos to Kristina Ackermann for an excellent overview of 2002 developments
in marijuana law reform (Daily Nexus, "2002: The Year in Marijuana," Jan.
14). It's important to note that punitive marijuana laws have little, if
any, deterrent value. The University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future
Study reports that lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the U.S. than any
European country, yet America 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.

The short-term health effects of marijuana are inconsequential compared to
the long-term effects of criminal records. Unfortunately, marijuana
represents the counterculture to misguided reactionaries in Congress intent
on legislating their version of morality. In subsidizing the prejudices of
culture warriors, the U.S. government is inadvertently subsidizing organized
crime. 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 some drugs 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. The big
losers in this battle are the American taxpayers who have been deluded into
believing big government is the appropriate response to nontraditional
consensual vices. Students interested in helping end the intergenerational
culture war otherwise known as the war on some drugs should contact Students
for Sensible Drug Policy at www.ssdp.org.

The results of a comparative study of European and U.S. rates of drug use
can be found at: www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/espad_pr.pdf.

PROGRAM OFFICE

DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE

ROBERT SHARPE