Pubdate: Wed, 20 Jun 2001
Source: Daily Iowan, The (IA Edu)
Copyright: 2001 The Daily Iowan
Contact:  http://www.dailyiowan.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/937
Author: James Eaves-Johnson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

MOVING TOWARD A MORE SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY

Canada is just finishing a round of radically liberalizing its 
marijuana laws. For many UI students, this is good news: more 
marijuana, more legal, and closer to home. Particularly novel is that 
Canada will soon legalize marijuana farming for the medicinal market.

This is a step unseen throughout the world. Hash use is widely 
permitted in many European countries. Several states have attempted 
to legalize pot for pharmaceutical use. However, none but Canada has 
gone so far as to permit private marijuana production.

Canada has only recently acted because an Ontario appeals court ruled 
that marijuana laws would be lifted unless Canada reworked its law to 
allow medicinal use of marijuana. Although this move was recent, it 
has led to broad liberalization of marijuana laws, and some are 
talking about going further. Joe Clark, the head of Canada's Tory 
party, has suggested full decriminalization.

Unfortunately, we in America are too benighted to move forward in 
liberalizing our drug laws. Our federal laws contain no medical-use 
exception. And, as the Supreme Court recently pointed out, state 
medical-marijuana laws do not make such an exception suddenly exist. 
Indeed, the tack of federal drug law in America is frightening enough 
that it should force even die-hard government-loving liberals to 
reconsider their support for the behemoth state.

Consider that under former President Clinton, a federal offender was 
incarcerated twice as long for drugs than for manslaughter. The 
federal government spends more than $17,000 per mile of border and 
coastline to stop drugs from entering, and then the vast majority 
still get in. Consider that marijuana has become the fourth-largest 
cash crop in America, with marijuana production being valued at five 
times tobacco production. At the same time, we are eroding our 
Constitution with a failed War on Drugs that more resembles a War on 
the Bill of Rights.

It is mind-boggling that Americans can look at these facts and 
support the failed War on Drugs in general, let alone the prohibition 
of marijuana. Indeed, in light of what should be done, Canada looks 
as though it is taking mere baby steps that the United States should 
take immediately. In fact, U.S. drug policy is not only having 
deleterious effects at home, it is also making huge impacts abroad. 
U.S. demand for illicit drugs funds criminal organizations worldwide. 
Both Mexican President Vicente Fox and Uruguayan President Jorge 
Batlle have suggested that little can be done in their countries 
until the United States moves towards legalization. Batlle even went 
so far as to point out that Colombian rebels would be defunded and 
the civil war there would be over if the United States legalized 
drugs.

Although the situation looks grim, it appears that the United States 
could have a shift of its own on drug policy. Support for 
liberalization of drug laws is no longer limited to a few pot-heads 
from NORML. According to an ACLU study, 79 percent of Americans 
responded favorably when asked if a doctor should be able to 
prescribe marijuana. The number rises to 85 percent for prescriptions 
where marijuana has been proven effective.

However, support does not end there. A rising number of conservatives 
have made libertarian statements supporting liberalization. Among 
them are Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, Republican Rep. Ron Paul, 
R-Texas, former Republican Vice President Dan Quayle, and former 
Reagan Secretary of State George Schultz.

One of the biggest reformers is Republican Gov. Gary Johnson of New 
Mexico. If you go to his Web site (www.governor.state.nm.us), the 
first thing you see is his plan to decriminalize marijuana, among 
other things. Johnson is so outspoken about it that when the media 
asked if he had "experimented" with marijuana, he replied, "No, I 
smoked marijuana. This is something that I did. I did it along with a 
lot of other people. But me and my buddies, you know we enjoyed what 
we were doing."

But, you don't have to be a pot smoker like Johnson to support a move 
towards drug-law liberalization. I've never tried illicit drugs; I 
don't even drink alcohol, a drug far worse than marijuana in my 
opinion.

The facts speak for themselves. Canada has done what is minimally 
necessary to have a sane approach to drugs; full legalization would 
be an even better approach.

Even if you think drugs are bad and people shouldn't use them, then 
that does not mean that imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people 
for drug crimes is the solution. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman 
pointed out, "Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount 
of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive 
of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and 
order?"

I cannot.
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MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe