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`Medical Marijuana?'

Barry McCaffrey's warning against the legalization of marijuana misses
the point by implying that education leading to prevention should be
the primary goal of our national drug policy. In the long run he is
right. But in the meantime we have a monster crime problem stemming
from the illegal drug trade, which our government seems incapable of
eradicating. But that does not mean the government is powerless.

Government can control the environment in which the drug trade
operates by treating addicts as the health problem they are.
Dispensing drugs through medical channels will not end drug addiction.
But it will collapse the drug trade, which richly rewards the
recruitment of new users. Deny the drug trade the cash flow from
addicts who represent 25 percent of the users but consume 75
percent of the illegal drugs and the illegal drug pipeline will
collapse faster than an exposed Ponzi scheme. Gone as well, with the
illegal drug trade, will be the violence, thievery and corruption it
spawns.

McCaffrey is right to decry the loosely worded D.C. Initiative 57, but
he is wrong not to appreciate that some modification of our drug laws
is part of an enlightened medical approach to drug addiction, and the
immediate solution to the illegal drug trade that is eating away the
social fabric of the nation.

Harwood S. Nichols