Pubdate: Thu, 06 Sep 2001
Source: Red Bluff Daily News (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Red Bluff Daily News
Contact:  http://redbluffdailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1079
Author: Robert Sharpe, M.P.A.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

DRUG WAR HAS CREATED WEED WORTH WEIGHT IN GOLD

Editor:

The marijuana eradication efforts of Tehama County Sheriff Clay Parker are 
no doubt well-intended, but ultimately counterproductive. Such efforts only 
make illegal growing more profitable. Thanks to the drug war's distortion 
of basic supply and demand dynamics an easily grown weed is literally worth 
its weight in gold. Our tax dollars effectively subsidize organized crime. 
With money practically growing on trees any operations destroyed will be 
replaced.

Politicians need to stop worrying about the message drug policy reform 
sends to children and start thinking about the children themselves. Jailing 
pot smokers and citizens responding to the financial incentives created by 
drug laws does absolutely nothing to protect children from drugs. The 
thriving black market has no age controls, making it easier for kids to buy 
pot than beer.

Although marijuana is relatively harmless compared to alcohol - pot has 
never been shown to cause an overdose death - marijuana prohibition is 
deadly. As the most popular illicit drug, marijuana provides the black 
market contacts that introduce youth to hard drugs like meth. Current drug 
policy is a gateway policy. As counterintuitive as it may seem, replacing 
marijuana prohibition with regulation would do a better job protecting 
children from drugs than the never-ending drug war.

Robert Sharpe, M.P.A.

The Lindesmith Center

Drug Policy Foundation

Washington, D.C.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager