Pubdate: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) Copyright: 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Contact: http://www.seattle-pi.com/ Author: Terry Scott, Belfair PRISON-POLICE-TREATMENT HAS UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCES Every major study of marijuana regulation has concluded that marijuana prohibition would cause more problems than it solved and your July 27 issue certainly showed why, describing how well the black market supplies children with drugs and how much it is costing to double our prison population by jailing petty drug offenders for long periods. The numbers show plainly that the anti-drug prison-police-treatment industry chooses victims because they appear to be weak or poor, with 70 percent of those convicted being non-white, while non-white users are only about 15 percent of the problem. Among the unexpected consequences of all this is the fact that Hispanics, who may be the next numerical majority in our population, are being assaulted by police at record rates. Will the United States become an echo of South Africa, with a white minority controlling a majority by the use of a heavily militarized police force? Polls consistently show that 60 percent to 70 percent of the people think marijuana should be legalized and if we had a few more politicians as brave as Jesse Ventura, we might make some real progress toward solving our drug problem. However, it's also a fact that Hitler never had the support of most of the Germans, and his police never had the firepower or super-snoop abilities of modern American police, who are also able to make or break politicians with their political war chests. The people passed a medical-marijuana initiative, and now the police are trying to sabotage it in Olympia. Nobody in the police-prison-treatment industry wants the problem to end, and my guess is that things could get worse before they get better. Terry Scott, Belfair - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart