WHEN IT COMES TO POT, THERE'S A REASON BRITAIN IS GREAT

The British took a big leap forward recently, announcing a plan to
downgrade marijuana's status as an illegal drug.

Instead of treating pot like much harder drugs, such as cocaine and heroin,
Prime Minister Tony Blair's government will push a proposal to put it more
on par with, say, steroids.

Instead of arresting people who're caught with small amounts of marijuana,
the police in most cases will simply confiscate the drugs and give the
offender a warning. The point is to free the police to concentrate on more
serious crimes, government officials said.

With this latest move, Britain is finally getting more in step with the
rest of Western Europe, where only a handful of Scandinavian countries
still treat marijuana smoking as a crime. In Spain, Portugal, Belgium and
the Netherlands, they don't arrest marijuana users; in Spain and Portugal,
not even hard-drug use is a crime.

The United States should emulate its closest ally. Enough finger-pointing
at the decadent Dutch, with their pot shops and needle parks. We'd be in
the same league as the normally strait-laced Brits. A less flexible drug
policy hasn't served the British well, as they have one of the highest
drug-death rates in Western Europe.

So it's time to try something more sensible.

And because Blair cozies up to George W. Bush on most things, maybe he
could whisper in the president's ear that we have one of the most senseless
drug policies in the world.

In 2000, the last year for which the FBI has crime statistics, 743,000
people were arrested for marijuana offenses, 88 percent of them for simple
possession. Before Rudolph Giuliani became mayor, fewer than 800 marijuana
arrests were being made in New York City each year. After his crackdown on
so-called quality-of-life crimes, the number skyrocketed to 52,000.

If, as the current mayor, Mike Bloomberg, admits, he has not only smoked
marijuana, but really enjoyed it, should we continue arresting 50,000
people a year for doing the same thing?

Marijuana does not have the same connection to violence and crime that
alcohol has, or the link to addiction, sickness and death that tobacco
does. Yet alcohol and tobacco are legal -- because so many Americans like
to smoke and drink, and because these drugs support huge industries. Yet
marijuana, a mild intoxicant that's associated with teenagers and younger
adults, is treated like the drug from hell.

Drugs are the third rail of U.S. politics, and few politicians are willing
to call for changes in the current drug policy for fear of being called
soft on drugs and soft on crime. Yet most politicians are out of step with
the American public.

A recent Zogby poll asked, in light of the more pressing concerns caused by
Sept. 11, if Americans favored arresting and jailing people for smoking
marijuana. Sixty-one percent said they do not.

Twelve states have stopped arresting people who are caught with marijuana
in public, and Nevada has a voters' initiative on the ballot this fall that
could give it the most progressive marijuana policy in the nation. It would
legalize possession of up to 3 ounces, authorize the state to open
state-licensed marijuana shops and make marijuana available cheaply for
medical purposes.

The big obstacle is the federal law that forbids the use or possession or
sale of marijuana, and even its use for medical reasons. The federal
government should get out of the way and let the states adopt more
reasonable policies, if they see fit.

And the states, in short, should follow the Brits.

Sheryl McCarthy is a columnist for Newsday, a Tribune Publishing company.