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DRUG POLICY OFFICER PUSHES TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

The daily herald's thoughtful Aug.  5th editorial on the Emmit Scott case makes the point that marijuana is relatively harmless compared to many legal drugs.  If health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms marijuana would be legal.  The first marijuana laws were a racist reaction to Mexican immigration during the early 1900s, passed in large part due to newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst's sensationalist yellow journalism.  White Americans did not even begin to smoke marijuana until a soon-to-be entrenched government bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda.

These days marijuana is confused with '60s counterculture.  This intergenerational culture war does far more harm than marijuana.  Drug policies modeled after America's disastrous experiment with alcohol prohibition effectively subsidize organized crime, while failing miserably at preventing use.  Indeed, the black market's lack of age controls makes it easier for kids to buy illegal drugs than beer.

In Europe, the Netherlands has successfully reduced overall drug use by replacing marijuana prohibition with regulation.  Dutch rates of drug use are significantly lower than U.S.  rates in every category.  Separating the hard and soft drug markets and establishing age controls for marijuana has proven more effective than zero tolerance.  As the most popular illicit drug in the U.S., illegal marijuana provides the black market contacts that introduce users to drugs like heroin.  This "gateway" is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed policy.

Given that marijuana is arguably safer than legal alcohol - the plant has never been shown to cause an overdose death - it makes no sense to waste tax dollars on failed policies that finance organized crime and facilitate the use of hard drugs.  Drug policy reform may send the wrong message to children, but I like to think the children themselves are more important than the message.  Opportunistic "tough on drugs" politicians would no doubt disagree.

A dated comparison of Dutch vs.  American rates of drug use can be found at: http://www.netherlands-embassy.org/c_drugstat.html

More recent figures can be found at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/thenethe.htm

Sincerely, Robert Sharpe, M.P.A.  Program Officer The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation Washington, D.C.