Pubdate: Wed, 15 Jan 2003
Source: Sylvan Lake News (CN AB)
Copyright: Sylvan Lake News Ltd. 2003
Contact:  http://www.sylvanlakenews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2378
Author: Robert Sharpe
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

CRIMINALS THE ONLY WINNERS IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

Dear Editor,

Your Jan. 8 editorial was right on target. If health outcomes determined 
drug laws instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be legal. Unlike 
alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor 
does it share the addictive properties of tobacco.

The first marijuana laws were a racist reaction to Mexican migration during 
the early 1900s. An Edmonton woman writing under the pen name Janey Canuck 
first warned Canadians about dread marijuana and its association with 
non-white immigrants. The yellow journalism of William Randolph Hearst led 
to its criminalization in the United States.

Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been 
counterproductive at best. Whites did not begin to smoke marijuana until a 
soon-to-be entrenched government bureaucracy began funding reefer madness 
propaganda. Over time marijuana has come to represent the counterculture to 
misguided reactionaries intent on legislating their version of morality.

In subsidizing the prejudices of culture warriors, government is 
inadvertently subsidizing organized crime. The drug war's distortion of 
immutable laws of supply and demand make an easily grown weed literally 
worth its weight in gold.

The only clear winners in the war on marijuana are drug cartels and 
shameless tough-on-drugs politicians who've built careers on confusing drug 
prohibition's collateral damage with a relatively harmless plant. Make no 
mistake, punitive marijuana laws have little, if any, deterrent value.

Telling examples of drug war failure can be found very close to home. The 
University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future Study reports that lifetime 
use of marijuana is higher in the U.S. than any European country, yet the 
U.S. is one of the few Western countries that wastes resources punishing 
citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis.

Robert Sharpe, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, DC
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager