Pubdate: Sun, 12 Aug 2001
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2001, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://www.fyitoronto.com/torsun.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Section: Letter of the Day
Author: Robert Sharpe
Note: Parenthetical remark by the Sun editor; headline by newshawk
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1443/a08.html

MARIJUANA PROHIBITION IS DEADLY

RE LINDA Williamson's excellent Aug. 5 column on reefer madness: North 
America's marijuana laws are based on culture and xenophobia, not health 
outcomes.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican migration 
during the early 1900s. An Edmonton woman writing under the pen name Janey 
Canuck first warned Canadians about the dread marijuana and its association 
with non-white immigrants. The sensationalist yellow journalism of William 
Randolph Hearst led to its criminalization in the United States. Whites did 
not even begin to smoke marijuana until a soon-to-be entrenched government 
bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda.

When threatened, the drug war gravy train predictably decries the "message" 
that drug policy reform sends to children.

There is a big difference between condoning marijuana use and protecting 
children from drugs. Decriminalization acknowledges the social reality of 
marijuana use and frees users from the stigma of life-shattering criminal 
records.

What's really needed is a regulated market with age controls. Right now, 
kids have an easier time buying pot than beer.

Although marijuana is relatively harmless compared to most legal drugs - 
the plant has never been shown to cause an overdose death - marijuana 
prohibition is deadly.

As the most popular illicit drug, marijuana provides the black market 
contacts that introduce youth to addictive drugs like heroin. Present drug 
policy is a gateway policy.

Drug policy reform may send the wrong message to children, but I like to 
think the children are more important than the message.

Robert Sharpe
Program Officer
The Lindesmith Centre
Drug Policy Foundation
Washington, D.C.

(Nothing should be more important)
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens