CONNECTING MARIJUANA TO TERROR IS BAD POLICY

Re: A dilemma of keeping out the right bad guys, 11/19 Jan Glidewell column:

Editor: Jan Glidewell wonders "how much more effective our limited law
enforcement resources would be if less time was spent chasing bales of
marijuana." It's not just a question of resources. International terrorists
have unfortunately caught on to something Al Capone learned in the 1920s
during alcohol prohibition. There are enormous profits to be made on the
black market.

While the military is defending the country, drug czar John Walters is
seeking to cash in on America's tragedy. The drug czar's latest antidrug
campaign seeks to link the war on drugs to the war on terrorism. With drug
war budgets at risk during a time of shifting national priorities, drug war
bureaucrats are cynically using drug prohibition's collateral damage to
justify more of the same.

The illicit drug of choice in America is domestically grown marijuana, not
Afghan heroin or Colombian cocaine. 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.
Naturally the government bureaucrats whose jobs depend on a never-ending
drug war prefer to blame the plant itself for the alleged "gateway" to hard
drugs.

Robert Sharpe, Program Officer, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, D.C.