Pubdate: Tue, 31 Mar 2009
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Page: A - 15
Copyright: 2009 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Aaron Houston
Note: Aaron Houston is director of government relations for the 
Marijuana Policy Project, www.mpp.org. This column is adapted from a 
piece that first appeared on www.ForeignPolicy.com.

POT LAWS ARE NO LAUGHING MATTER

President Obama responded last week to the most popular question 
submitted by online voters - whether marijuana should be made legal 
in order to bring this huge underground industry into the legal 
economy - by treating it pretty much as a joke.

But the time for jokes has passed. Our marijuana laws are killing people.

The horrifying drug-war violence on our southern border continues to 
worsen: beheadings, daily killings that now number more than 6,000, 
and honest officials fearing for their lives. U.S. marijuana laws 
subsidize these murderous gangs.

Some 60 to 70 percent of the profits that fuel the Mexican cartels 
come from marijuana. The chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration's Mexico and Central America Section recently told the 
New York Times that marijuana is the "king crop" for Mexican cartels, 
which have active operations in 230 U.S. cities.

Like it or not, marijuana is a massive industry. Some 100 million 
Americans admit to government survey-takers that they've used it, 
with nearly 15 million acknowledging use in the past month. That's a 
huge market - more Americans smoking pot than will buy a new car or 
truck this year.

U.S. policies are based on the fantasy that we can somehow make this 
industry go away, but prohibition hasn't stopped marijuana use. 
Indeed, federal statistics show a roughly 4,000 percent rise since 
the first national ban took effect in 1937. We've simply handed a 
virtual monopoly on production and distribution to criminals, 
including those brutal Mexican gangs.

The solution is obvious. After all, there's a reason these gangs 
aren't smuggling wine grapes. Prohibition simply doesn't work - not 
in the 1930s and not now.

End prohibition, and our marijuana industry could start to look like 
California's wine business: A responsible industry that adds to the 
state's prestige, tourism and tax coffers, rather than a source of 
violence and instability. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake