TAX DOLLARS WASTED ON WAR AGAINST MARIJUANA

Re: 'Neighbourhood pot labs busted' Oakville Beaver, Fri. Nov. 16, 2001. The
RCMP efforts to eradicate the marijuana trade are no doubt well-intended,
but ultimately counterproductive. The drug war's distortion of basic supply
and demand dynamics makes an easily grown weed literally worth its weight in
gold. Canadian tax dollars are being wasted on anti-drug strategies that
only make marijuana growing more profitable.

And let's not kid ourselves about protecting children.

The thriving black market has no controls for age, making it easier for
teenagers to buy illegal drugs than beer. Politicians need to stop worrying
about the message drug policy reform sends to children and start thinking
about the children themselves. There are cost-effective alternatives to the
failed drug war. In Europe, the Netherlands has successfully reduced overall
drug use by replacing marijuana prohibition with regulation. Separating the
hard and soft drug markets and establishing age controls for marijuana has
proven more effective than zero tolerance. As the most popular illicit drug
in Canada, marijuana provides the black market contacts that introduce users
to drugs like heroin.

This "gateway" is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed policy.

Given that marijuana is arguably safer than legal alcohol -- pot has never
been shown to cause an overdose death -- it makes no sense to waste tax
dollars on policies that finance organized crime groups like the Hells
Angels and facilitate the use of addictive hard drugs. If you are interested
in a dated comparison of Dutch vs. U.S. rates of drug use one can be found
at: http://www.netherlands-embassy.org/c_drugstat.html . More recent figures
can be found at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/thenethe.htm . Annual Causes of
Death in the U.S.: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm .

Robert Sharpe, M.P.A.

Program Officer, The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation,
Washington, DC 20008-2328