Pubdate: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 Source: Post and Courier, The (Charleston, SC) Copyright: 2002 Evening Post Publishing Co. Contact: http://www.charleston.net/index.html Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/567 Author: Robert Sharpe. HARMFUL DRUG POLICIES Your Dec. 8 editorial on Colombia included statements made by Secretary of State Colin Powell that link the war on drugs to the war on terror. Powell is following the lead of drug czar John Walters, who began confusing the two almost immediately after Sept. 11. Ironically, the drug czar's drug-terror ad campaign first premiered amidst beer commercials during the Super Bowl. International terrorists have unfortunately caught on to something gangster Al Capone learned in the 1920s during alcohol prohibition. There are enormous profits to be made on the black market. The fact that drug prohibition funds organized crime at home and terrorists abroad hardly justifies more of the same harmful policies. The illicit drug of choice in America is domestically grown marijuana, not Colombian cocaine or Afghan heroin. The opportunistic drug-terror rhetoric coming out of Washington may lead Americans to mistakenly conclude that marijuana smokers are somehow responsible for Sept. 11. That's likely no accident. Taxing and regulating marijuana would render the drug war obsolete. As long as marijuana remains illegal and distributed by organized crime, consumers will continue to come into contact with drugs like cocaine and heroin. Marijuana may be relatively harmless - pot has never been shown to cause an overdose death - but marijuana prohibition is deadly. ROBERT SHARPE, M.P.A. Program Officer Drug Policy Alliance - --- MAP posted-by: Beth