HARMFUL DRUG POLICIES

Your Dec. 8 editorial on Colombia included statements made by Secretary of
State Colin Powell that link the war on drugs to the war on terror.

Powell is following the lead of drug czar John Walters, who began confusing
the two almost immediately after Sept. 11. Ironically, the drug czar's
drug-terror ad campaign first premiered amidst 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. The fact that drug
prohibition funds organized crime at home and terrorists abroad hardly
justifies more of the same harmful policies.

The illicit drug of choice in America is domestically grown marijuana, not
Colombian cocaine or Afghan heroin. The opportunistic drug-terror rhetoric
coming out of Washington may lead Americans to mistakenly conclude that
marijuana smokers are somehow responsible for Sept. 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 drugs like cocaine and heroin.

Marijuana may be relatively harmless - pot has never been shown to cause an
overdose death - but marijuana prohibition is deadly.

ROBERT SHARPE, M.P.A.

Program Officer

Drug Policy Alliance