Pubdate: Tue, 17 Dec 2013
Source: Daily Hampshire Gazette (MA)
Copyright: 2013 Daily Hampshire Gazette
Contact:  http://www.gazettenet.com/home/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/106
Author: Robert Sharpe
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v13/n583/a01.html

WAR ON POT IS FAILED 'CULTURAL INQUISITION'

To the editor:

The days when our federal government can get away with confusing the 
drug war's tremendous collateral damage with a comparatively harmless 
plant are coming to an end ("Last day nears in war on a drug," column 
by Bill Newman, Dec. 7).

If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to subsidize violent drug 
cartels, prohibition is a grand success. The drug war distorts supply 
and demand dynamics so that big money grows on little trees. If the 
goal is to deter use, marijuana prohibition is a catastrophic failure.

The United States has double the rate of marijuana use as the 
Netherlands where marijuana is legal, according to a 2008 study by 
the World Health Organization. The criminalization of Americans who 
prefer marijuana to martinis has no scientific basis.

The war on marijuana consumers is a failed cultural inquisition, not 
an evidence-based public health campaign. Not just in Washington and 
Colorado but throughout the nation, it's time to stop the arrests and 
instead tax legal marijuana.

Robert Sharpe

Washington, D.C.

Robert Sharpe is a policy analyst with the group Common Sense for Drug Policy.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom