Pubdate: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 Source: Washington Times (DC) Copyright: 2003 News World Communications, Inc. Contact: http://www.washingtontimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492 Author: Robert Sharpe Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n533/a05.html Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/campaign.htm (ONDCP Media Campaign) FAILED DRUG WAR Thank you for running Heritage Foundation adjunct scholar William H. Peterson's column "The war on drugs" (Op-Ed, Tuesday). I had been told that some thinkers at the Heritage Foundation were reconsidering their take on drug policy, but this is the first evidence I have seen of it. Now that an adjunct scholar at the Heritage Foundation has joined the libertarian Cato Institute in applying basic economic principles to drug policy, perhaps it's time for the self-professed champions of the free market in Congress to do the same. Drug prohibition funds organized crime at home and terrorism abroad. The drug czar's sensationalist drug-terror ad campaign would have the public believe that's good reason to maintain the status quo. Afghanistan profits from heroin trafficking because of drug prohibition, not in spite of it. Here in the United States, the drug war's distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand make an easily grown weed such as marijuana literally worth its weight in gold. The various armed factions waging civil war in Colombia are financially dependent on America's drug war. With alcohol prohibition repealed, liquor bootleggers no longer gun down one another in drive-by shootings, nor do consumers go blind drinking bathtub gin. While U.S. politicians ignore the drug war's historical precedent, European countries are embracing harm reduction, a public health alternative based on the principle that both drug abuse and prohibition have the potential to cause harm. Examples of harm reduction include needle-exchange programs to stop the spread of HIV, marijuana regulation aimed at separating the hard and soft drug markets and treatment alternatives that do not require incarceration as a prerequisite. Unfortunately, fear of appearing "soft on crime" compels U.S. politicians to support a failed drug war that ultimately subsidizes organized crime. Drug abuse is bad, but the drug war is worse. ROBERT SHARPE, Program officer, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager