QUESTIONS ABOUT CANNABIS

Regarding Kevin Pascucci's Mar. 9th op-ed, the drug war is in large
part a war on marijuana, by far the most popular illicit drug.
Punitive marijuana laws have little, if any, deterrent value.

The University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future Study reports that
lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the United States than any
European country, yet America is one of the few Western countries
that use its criminal justice system to punish 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
to the long-term effects of criminal records. Unfortunately,
marijuana represents the counterculture to many Americans.

In subsidizing the prejudices of culture warriors, the U.S.
government is subsidizing organized crime. The drug war's distortion
of immutable laws of supply and demand makes an easily grown weed
literally worth its weight in gold. The only clear winners in the war
on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless tough-on-drugs
politicians who've built careers confusing drug prohibition's
collateral damage with a relatively harmless plant.

The big losers in this battle are the taxpayers deluded into
believing big government is the appropriate response to
non-traditional consensual vices.

Robert Sharpe