DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA, UNITED STATES MUST LOOK TO BRITAIN

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- One week ago, British Home Secretary David Blunkett
announced that marijuana possession will no longer be punishable by arrest
within the United Kingdom. The plans for reform by the Home Office mark the
first significant relaxation in British cannabis law in 30 years. Under the
new proposed national policy, marijuana will be reclassified as a "Class C"
or "soft" drug, giving it the same status as antidepressants and other
prescription drugs.

The United States should look to Britain's example of a more practical drug
policy.

Blunkett made the announcement before Members of Parliament on the home
affairs select committee and emphasized that the drug will still remain
illegal and that distribution of the substance would still potentially
carry a five-year penal sentence.

Yet according to the official proposals, arrests will be very unlikely for
those smokers who are caught with small amounts of marijuana for personal
use. British officials say the reclassification is designed to remove what
they call the "policing anomaly," visible in that seven out of 10 drug
arrests in the United Kingdom are for soft drug possession. British police,
as American police should, want to devote more time to cracking down on the
abuse of harder, more dangerous drugs like heroin and cocaine.

As it would in the U.S., the elimination of the arrest of pot smokers in
Britain will allow a dedication of criminal justice facilities to violent
crime.

Last week's proposal was recommended by the Home Office nearly 18 months
ago; its official acceptance is the latest in a series of drug policy
reforms occurring throughout Europe. Earlier this year, the governments of
Belgium, Luxembourg and Portugal completely decriminalized the use and
possession of marijuana. However, the prospect of similar drug policy
reform in the Unites States looks bleak.

Marijuana solidly and illogically continues to bear Schedule I status --
along with heroin, cocaine, and LSD. The U.S. government continues to
retain enormous ideological problems with all drugs, however innocuous they
may be. With rapid cannabis reform coming from Europe and Canada -- where
cannabis decriminalization is imminent, the United States is finding that
it is fast becoming the odd one out in granting rights to responsible
marijuana users.

It would seem that American policy makers are ironically far behind most
Western nations in their attention to certain basic civil liberties.

The United States should indeed realize the folly of its over-exaggerated
malign of recreational cannabis use and concentrate instead on crimes that
actually pose a threat to society.