COERCED TREATMENT WOULD BE INAPPROPRIATE

Regarding your March 5 editorial, "Senate makes progress toward drug
treatment": While I agree that drug treatment is preferable to
incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders, coerced treatment has the
potential to turn the drug war into a modern-day version of the Spanish
Inquisition. The Bush administration is currently pushing "compassionate
coercion" for users of certain drugs. Coerced treatment does not
distinguish between occasional use and chronic abuse. Given that only users
of politically incorrect drugs are threatened with jail, the nation's
millions of marijuana smokers are the most likely target of Bush's
"compassion." Like any drug, marijuana can be harmful if abused, but
arrests and forced treatment are hardly appropriate health interventions.
Diet is the No. 1 determinant of health outcomes.

Do we really want big government monitoring everything that goes into our
bodies?

And if it is the proper role of government to punish citizens for unhealthy
choices, why target marijuana?

Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death,
nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco.

Unfortunately, marijuana continues to represent the counterculture to
reactionaries intent on legislating their version of morality.

The United States now has the highest incarceration rate in the world, in
large part due to the war on some drugs.

This country cannot afford to continue subsidizing the prejudices of
culture warriors to the tune of $50 billion annually.

Robert Sharpe

Program officer, Drug Policy Alliance

Washington, D.C.