DON'T LOOK TO OBAMA FOR SENSIBLE CHANGE

Regarding the Journal Sentinel's June 19 editorial, don't look to the
Obama administration for change ("Rethinking the war on drugs").

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy immediately
rejected the high-profile Global Commission on Drug Policy call for
reform and defended the "balanced drug control efforts" of the federal
government. These so-called balanced efforts have given the land of
the free the highest incarceration rate in the world.

Prohibition-related violence has caused upward of 35,000 deaths in
Mexico over the past four years. Despite criminal penalties, the
United States has higher rates of drug use than European Union
countries such as Portugal that have decriminalized.

With the national debt soaring, we can no longer afford to throw good
money after bad drug policy.

Robert Sharpe

Policy Analyst

Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.