PUNISHING MARIJUANA SMOKERS IS USELESS

In your July 16 editorial "Going to Pot," you assert that "the evidence
emerging in countries that have legalized (the Netherlands, Switzerland,
Belgium) supports the view that decriminalization leads to rising drug use
and higher crime rates."

In Holland the homicide rate is 1.8 per 100,000 population, according to
the Registered Murders in the Netherlands, Press Release, CBS
Voorburg-Statistics Netherlands (1995). The Uniform Crime Reports:
Department of Justice (1995) reports that the U.S. rate is 8 per 100,000.
In other words, the U.S. murder rate is 444% of the Dutch rate.

There is also a large disparity in drug usage rates. The Netherlands, as
reported by the University of Amsterdam, Centre for Drug Research, found a
lifetime prevalence of marijuana use at 15.6% for people 12 and older. The
comparable number in the U.S. is 33%, according to the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.

David T. Wilkinson

Buzzards Bay, Mass.

IN DRUG WAR, TAXPAYERS ARE LOSERS

The actual impact of marijuana laws on rates of use is negligible. 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 wastes resources punishing
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 with 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 nontraditional
consensual vices.

Robert Sharpe

Program Officer, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington

DRUG WAR CONTRADICTS CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES

As one who agrees with most of your editorials, I'm always surprised that
you and most conservatives are willing to ignore oft-stated "principles" of
limited government, states' rights and individual freedom to jail Americans
who use a substance far less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.

Mark Mainwaring

El Paso, Texas