Pubdate: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (AK) Copyright: 2004 Fairbanks Publishing Company, Inc. Contact: http://www.news-miner.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/764 Author: Karl Schroeder Cited: Proposition 2 http://www.yeson2alaska.com YES ON MEASURE 2 To the editor: Concerns about the health of our citizens or about their productivity are red herrings in the debate over the legalization of marijuana. The fact that people are being prosecuted and imprisoned for using marijuana while alcohol remains a staple commodity is absurd. Alcohol is the more dangerous substance. A lethal dose is easily achieved. Its role in causing automobile accidents is beyond dispute. It contributes to human violence, personal injury, unplanned pregnancy, and the spread of sexual disease. Alcohol is also addictive. More than 100,000 people every year die from its use. It is also more toxic to a developing fetus than any other drug of abuse. None of these charges can be leveled at marijuana. As a drug, marijuana is nearly unique in having several medical applications and no known lethal dosage. Marijuana kills no one. Its role as a "gateway drug" now seems less plausible than ever (it never was plausible). In fact, nearly everything human beings do--driving cars, flying planes, hitting golf balls, is more dangerous than smoking marijuana in the privacy of one's own home. Our prohibition of certain substances has led thousands of otherwise productive and law-abiding men and women to be locked away for decades on a stretch, sometimes for life. Each year, over 1.5 million men and women are arrested in the U.S. because of our drug laws. At this moment, over 400,000 men and women languish in U.S. prisons for nonviolent drug offenses. One million others are currently on probation. The cost of these efforts at the federal level alone is $20 billion annually. The total cost of our drug laws' expense to both state and local government and the tax revenue lost by our failure to regulate the sale of drugs could easily be $100 billion. Our war on drugs consumes an estimated 50 percent of the trial time of our courts and the full time energies of over 400,000 police officers, a waste of resources that could otherwise be used to fight violent crime and terrorism. Please join me in voting yes on Proposition 2. Karl Schroeder Fairbanks - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake