Pubdate: Wed, 22 Sep 2010
Source: North County Times (Escondido, CA)
Copyright: 2010 North County Times
Contact: http://www.nctimes.com/app/forms/letters/index.php
Website: http://www.nctimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1080
Author: Gretchen Burns Bergman
Note: Gretchen Burns Bergman is co-founder and executive director of 
A New PATH (Parents for Addiction Treatment & Healing), which seeks 
seeking therapeutic, rather than punitive, alternatives to the War on 
Drugs and is based in Spring Valley.
Cited: Proposition 19 http://yeson19.com/
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/find?272 (Proposition 19)

COMPASSION, NOT CRIMINALIZATION

Approximately 2.3 million people, 1 in 100 adults, are incarcerated 
in the United States. More than 30,000 people are in prison in 
California for a drug offense, two-thirds for mere possession. We 
spend $49,000 per year on one inmate. In these dire economic times, 
this is beyond irresponsible. It is insane to waste taxpayer money to 
imprison a person for smoking, possessing or even abusing "pot."

In California, moms are uniting and leading the charge to end 
marijuana prohibition, just as a group of mothers did to end the 
prohibition of alcohol in the 1930s. We are fed up with the violence, 
loss of lives and liberties caused by the war on drugs, so we are 
demanding an end to the pointless criminaliization of drug users and 
the needless deaths created by the illegal drug trade. We are joining 
with mothers who have lost their children to overdose, and parents 
whose families have been ravaged by addiction and incarceration, in 
an effort to promote compassionate and therapeutic policies. We 
cannot continue to try to punish our way out of what is essentially a 
public health problem.

Prohibition has failed.

I endorse Proposition 19, the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act 
of 2010, not because I am in favor of drug use, but because I love my 
children, and I firmly believe that the war on drugs has done more 
harm than good to our society. Prop 19 will decriminalize possession 
of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults 21 and older. It will allow 
local governments such as San Diego County to decide how to regulate 
the sale of marijuana to adults. It is sound and reasonable public policy.

I have experienced the damages of marijuana prohibition first-hand. 
My older son was arrested for marijuana possession in 1990, which 
began a decade of recycling in and out of the prison system for 
nonviolent drug charges and relapse. This was a devastating emotional 
saga for our family, a tremendous waste of human potential and an 
extreme financial burden to the state. Since that year, marijuana 
possession arrests are up by 127 percent in California.

I believe that law enforcement targeting of marijuana has more to do 
with "tough-on-crime" politics than reason and science. Although 
violence isn't normally associated with cannabis use, the murder and 
mayhem created by the drug cartels, which generate 60 percent of 
their profits from marijuana alone, is wreaking havoc on both sides 
of our city's border with Mexico.

Despite prohibition, marijuana remains widely available to young 
people. Regulating and taxing marijuana would mean that youth have 
less access. Law enforcement could focus on more important public 
safety matters, and we could utilize our dwindling resources on 
needed prevention and addiction treatment services. Classifying 
someone who smokes marijuana as a criminal, or making a drug addict 
into a villain, not only exacerbates the problem, but also promotes 
fear-based stigma and discrimination and can lead to life-long social 
exclusion.

It's time to dispel angry politics and embrace drug policies of 
compassion and restoration, rather than criminalization and retribution.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake