WEEDING OUT BAD POLICY

Your Dec. 19 editorial ("Federal smokescreen") was right on target. There
is a big difference between condoning marijuana use and protecting children
from drugs. Decriminalization acknowledges the social reality of marijuana
and frees users from the stigma of criminal records. What's really needed
is a regulated market with age controls.

Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical. As long as marijuana
distribution remains in the hands of organized crime, consumers will
continue to come into contact with hard drugs like cocaine. This "gateway"
is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed policy.

In the words of Canadian Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, "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." Marijuana may be relatively harmless, but marijuana
prohibition is deadly.

Telling examples of drug war failure can be found very close to home. The
University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future study reports that lifetime
use [i.e. using a drug once or more during a lifetime] of marijuana is
higher in the U.S. than any European country, yet the U.S. is one of the
few Western countries that uses its criminal justice system to punish
citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis.

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 intent on
legislating their version of morality.

The drug war's distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand make an
easily grown weed 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.

ROBERT SHARPE, PROGRAM OFFICER, DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE, WASHINGTON, DC