NEW CAMPUS GROUP PROMOTES SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY

It has come to my attention that DSG recently chartered a Duke chapter of
Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, a national organization. From a public
policy standpoint, there are many benefits to having a club like this on
our campus. A necessary dialogue will be raised about the costs and
benefits associated with the United States' war on drugs. Impugning the war
on drugs is an ever-growing worldwide phenomenon. Great Britain, Canada,
the Netherlands, Switzerland and others have loosened their drug
regulations. With fewer law enforcement officials pursuing non-violent
members of society, their police forces now concentrate on real criminals.
Moreover, by reducing legal and judicial spending and prison costs, these
countries have funds available for drug education programming and treatment
for those fighting drug addictions. Like alcoholism, drug addiction is a
disease; the U.S. government makes felons out of these diseased individuals.

Are we willing to let our nation legislate our morality? Will our nation
continue to dictate which social drugs we can put in our bodies and which
we cannot? Will we ever emulate forward-thinking and forward-acting
European nations or will we remain stuck in a socially conservative rut?
Nevada's Nov. 5 vote on a marijuana initiative may be breeding grounds for
a revolution in U.S. drug policy. If revolutions truly start from the
bottom up, it makes sense that marijuana is the first target of reform.
Unlike cigarettes and alcohol (legal and socially acceptable drugs), it is
non-habit forming and non-lethal. Students, citizens, voters, is a sensible
drug policy for the world's most powerful nation too much to ask?