WAR ON DRUGS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED POLICY

Dear Editor: As noted in your March 16 editorial, anti-loitering laws are
no solution to drug dealing.

The tough-on-drugs approach is problematic, especially when focused
exclusively in poor neighborhoods. Forcibly limiting the supply of illegal
drugs while demand remains constant only increases the profitability of
drug trafficking. In terms of addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in
street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to
feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime.

The burden on taxpayers grows each year as ever more drug users and
dealers are imprisoned for consensual vices. Drug use continues unabated
as replacement dealers step in to reap inflated illicit market profits.
Let's not kid ourselves about protecting children. Illegal drug dealers
don't ID for age, but they do recruit minors immune to adult sentences.

There are cost-effective alternatives. In Europe, the Netherlands has
successfully reduced overall drug use by replacing marijuana prohibition
with adult regulation. Dutch rates of drug use are significantly lower than
U.S. rates in every category. Separating the hard and soft drug markets
and establishing age controls for marijuana has proven more effective than
zero tolerance. Here in America illegal marijuana provides the black
market contacts that introduce users to drugs like cocaine.

This "gateway" is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed policy. Given
that marijuana is arguably safer than legal alcohol -- the plant has never
been shown to cause an overdose death -- it makes no sense to waste tax
dollars on failed policies that subsidize organized crime and facilitate
the use of hard drugs. Drug policy reform may send the wrong message to
children, but I like to think the children themselves are more important
than the message. Opportunistic tough-on-drugs politicians would no doubt
disagree.

A dated comparison of Dutch vs. American rates of drug use can be found at:

http://www.netherlands-embassy.org/c_drugstat.html

More recent figures can be found at: www.drugwarfacts.org/thenethe.htm

Robert Sharpe, M.P.A., program officer, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, D.C.