DRUG WAR FAILING TAXPAYERS

Editor:

In his thoughtful Nov. 29th column, Scott Perry explains the proliferation
of illicit drug dealing in Kentucky by noting the "drug business offers
much greater returns than minimum wage jobs." The drug war is in large part
a war against marijuana. 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 jail cells and criminal records are
hardly ideal health interventions.

Unfortunately, marijuana represents the counterculture to misguided
reactionaries intent on legislating their version of morality. In
subsidizing the prejudices of culture warriors our 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.

Marijuana is arguably Kentucky's number one cash crop. The only clear
winners in the war on some drugs are drug dealers 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. 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. This
country cannot afford to continue subsidizing the prejudices of culture
warriors.

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

*MTF is funded by the U.S. government

Robert Sharpe, M.P.A.

Program Officer Drug Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicy.org

Washington, DC 20005