Pubdate: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 Source: Salt Lake Tribune (UT) Copyright: 2002 The Salt Lake Tribune Contact: http://www.sltrib.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/383 Author: Nathan Holdaway IN PRAISE OF POT As a pot smoker I am sick and tired of people judging "my kind" as stoners, lawbreakers, and/or social deviants. I will graduate college this fall. While I go to school I work 40 hours a week while taking a course load of 18 credit hours of upper-division courses. I have never been arrested, I pay my taxes, vote, exercise, contribute to a 401k, etc., as do many of my fellow pot-smokers. I have personally smoked with members of my school's faculty who hold very respected positions. The point is that I am not going away. Neither are any of my colleagues. Every year government spends more and more money incarcerating drug offenders while releasing rapists and kidnappers to make room. Yet has the war on drugs done anything to me? No. In fact the cost for me to buy a bag has gone down -- which in simple economics means that the demand for it has increased. In 1995 the state of Utah ranked 34th in the nation for marijuana production yet it was still our No. 2 cash crop behind hay. The 16,000 pounds of Utah-grown marijuana that year had an estimated street value between $69 million and $111 million. The war on drugs was only able to eradicate 5 percent of that year's crop, or $5 million worth. Legalization would generate revenue from taxes, create jobs, and free up funds from our already overcrowded prison system. The reality is that the "War on Drugs" causes more crime than it eradicates. For every "dealer" arrested there are five to 10 more who will take his place. Someone you know and love smokes pot. Are they criminals? A distinction needs to be made: Is it the crime that is committed when high that is illegal or is it being high that is illegal? People get high every day without breaking the law. And what business is it of yours or the government's what I put into my body as long as I do not harm another individual on this planet? NATHAN HOLDAWAY Salt Lake City - --- MAP posted-by: Beth