PROHIBITION ENCOURAGES YOUNG PEOPLE TO EXPERIMENT WITH DRUGS.

Sir, Martin Wolf hit the nail right on the head in his outstanding column
"The folly of prohibiting drugs" (May 29).

It is widely believed that prohibiting a substance reduces the use of the
prohibited substance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Before what
we call marijuana and you call cannabis was prohibited in the US via the
Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, someone testified before Congress that there were
a total of 100,000 marijuana smokers in the US. That is fewer than a tenth
of 1 per cent of the US population at the time. Today the US government
estimates that 76m Americans have used marijuana - more than a third of the
adult population of the US. About half of all high school students have used
marijuana by the time they graduate.

Prohibition does not prevent use: prohibition encourages use. People -
especially children - want what they are told they cannot have. Prohibition
is counterproductive.

Kirk Muse, Mesa, AZ