LEGALIZE POT

Tobacco, Alcohol Are Worse

IN TUESDAY'S election, voters in Nevada, Arizona and Ohio all rejected
initiatives that would have legalized marijuana, or drastically reduced
penalties for possession of it. At the same time, San Francisco voters
authorized the city government to begin growing medicinal pot to ease the
pain and nausea of severely ill people.

Despite such conflicting results, we think America is moving toward
acceptance of marijuana. So far, nine states have approved medical pot to
soothe the sick, and several urban regions are easing the iron fist of
prosecution.

The tide of history is running against hard-nosed police action. Polls now
indicate that 80 percent of Americans approve medical usage, and 72 percent
think that possessing small quantities should be a mere misdemeanor,
subject to a fine, not jail. Roughly half of Americans say they have tried
pot at least once.

The Bush administration and conservative politicians still support a
military-style "war" on marijuana. After California voters approved medical
pot, Attorney General John Ascroft vowed to revoke the licenses of doctors
who prescribed it - and also sent heavily armed squads to raid pot farms
that were legal under the new California law. Public reaction was scornful.

"The government's drug-reform policy is driven by a fundamentalist
Christian sense of morality that sees any of these illegal substances used
as evil," Arizona billionaire John Sperling told Time magazine. Sperling -
who is 81, and certainly not a "hippie" pot-lover - uses part of his
fortune to support marijuana ballot initiatives.

Tobacco kills about 400,000 Americans each year, and alcohol ruins
thousands of lives, causing car crashes, home fires, job losses, divorces
and other ills. But both of those substances are perfectly legal in
America, while less-harmful pot isn't. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., told Time:

"Alcohol does more damage in many areas of society than drugs, particularly
marijuana, but we treat marijuana as much worse, and that's because it's
associated with the counterculture."

The magazine added that legalization advocates think "the right wing of the
Republican Party connects drug use with sin and radicalism and the failure
of the family." So the war on drugs is partly a Puritanical morality battle.

Even federal judges are rebuffing the Bush-Ashcroft forces. The 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that the Justice Department can't
punish physicians for prescribing pot for suffering patients. The San Jose
Mercury News called it a victory against the White House's "mean-spirited
campaign."

We've said many times that the government should stop wasting billions of
taxpayer dollars on its futile attempt to stamp out pot-puffing - an effort
that is following the doomed trajectory of Prohibition's attempt to erase
alcohol. Why throw thousands of Americans in jail for using a substance
that is less hurtful than legal substances?

Step by step, America is moving toward this conclusion.