Pubdate: Fri, 03 May 2013 Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA) Copyright: 2013 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. Contact: http://www.utsandiego.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386 Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area. Author: Robert Sharpe Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v13/n185/a07.html PROHIBITING POT FAILS AS A DETERRENCE Regarding your May 2 editorial, "How to end the battle over marijuana": If health outcomes determined drug laws, marijuana would be legal and there would be no medical marijuana debate. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Marijuana can be harmful, but jail cells are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents. The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican immigration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been counterproductive. Americans did not begin to smoke pot in significant numbers until our government began funding reefer madness propaganda. Marijuana prohibition has clearly failed as a deterrent. The United States has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available. The only winners in the war on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless tough-on-drugs politicians who've built careers confusing the drug war's tremendous collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant. - - Robert Sharpe, policy analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington, D.C. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom