U.S. DRUG POLICY HURTS EVERYONE FOR NO GOOD REASON

Robert Sharpe (Program Officer, Drug Policy Alliance)

Matthew Tolnick makes a strong case for drug policy reform in his letter to
the editor on the Duke chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. It's
worth noting that the various countries listed by Tolnick as having
abandoned the zero-tolerance drug war have lower rates of drug use. The
University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future Study reports that lifetime
use of marijuana is higher in the United States than in 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. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an
overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. 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 in Congress intent on
legislating their version of morality. In subsidizing the prejudices of
culture warriors, the U.S. 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. 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. The big
losers in this battle are the American taxpayers who have been deluded into
believing big government is the appropriate response to non-traditional
consensual vices. Students interested in drug policy reform should contact
Students for Sensible Drug Policy at www.ssdp.org.