Pubdate: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 Source: Bangor Daily News (ME) Copyright: 2000, Bangor Daily News Inc. Contact: http://www.bangornews.com/ Author: Jay McCloskey Note: Jay McCloskey is the U.S. attorney for Maine. MAKING THE CASE AGAINST LEGALIZATION Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico told reporters last year that he would legalize marijuana and heroin. Gov. Johnson's comments continue to make waves; he was lauded in Matthew Miller's column (BDN, Aug. 23) and was the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine story (Aug. 20). Gov. Johnson argues that the "war against drugs" is a failure because we spend a fortune on drug control yet drugs are still available and 80 million Americans have tried them. He points out that we're spending huge amounts of money incarcerating marijuana users. Gov. Johnson's solution is to stop getting tough with drugs and legalize them. I fundamentally disagree with Gov. Johnson's belief that drugs should be legalized, and I think his argument is logically flawed. I agree with Gov. Johnson that we need to devote more resources toward prevention, education and treatment, and I agree that jailing marijuana users is an ineffective use of resources. But I think it would be a grave mistake to legalize any more drugs. Legalization advocates point out that 450,000 people died last year from smoking cigarettes, 150,000 died as a consequence of drinking alcohol, and 100,000 died from legal prescription drugs, but few if any died from marijuana and only 5,000 died from cocaine and heroin. But these statistics are strong support for keeping marijuana, cocaine and heroin illegal. Cigarettes and alcohol are Exhibits A and B in the case against legalization. Some 50 million Americans are addicted to cigarettes and 28 million Americans have alcohol problems. These problems cost our society roughly $220 billion each year. Among young people, 90 percent have used cigarettes or alcohol. The linchpin in drug use theory is availability. Around 60 percent of our young people have used marijuana. If we were to make a drug like marijuana legally available, as cigarettes and alcohol are, we could expect to see use rates rise to climb to about 90 percent. Legalization advocates incorrectly claim that marijuana is a harmless drug. First, marijuana (like cigarettes and alcohol) is considered a gateway drug. People addicted to drugs like heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and hallucinogens almost always started with cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana before they "advanced" to harder drugs. Second, even if users did stop at marijuana, it is simply not a harmless drug. In the 1990s we spent an extraordinary amount of money educating people about the harmful health effects of smoking. We have severely penalized the tobacco industry for pushing cigarettes on people, and we are beginning to make that industry accountable for the harm it has done. How ironic that we rail against the evils of tobacco and at the same time consider legalization of marijuana, which produces similar, if not worse, carcinogenic and other adverse health effects. Fortunately, Gov. Johnson has backed off his initial call to legalize heroin. Making heroin more widely available would have devastating consequences to our society. Cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana are not immediately addictive to most people and the health consequences associated with them are often chronic, not instantaneous. Heroin is highly addictive, and, all too often, lethal. Many people have asked me recently why I feel so strongly about drugs. The answer is that I have seen — up close and too many times — the devastating consequences that drugs have on the people who use them and on their families. The short and simple answer to legalization is that we have enough problems with cigarettes and alcohol. Let's not compound our problems and legalize any more drugs. - --- MAP posted-by: GD