FIGHT PROHIBITION OF MARIJUANA

Kudos to the University of Iowa students bold enough to speak out against
marijuana prohibition. Punitive marijuana laws have done little other than
burden millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens with criminal records.

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.

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.

Robert Sharpe, Program Officer Drug Policy Alliance

Washington, D.C.