TIME HAS COME TO UPDATE DRUG LAWS

Thanks to the Connecticut Post for making the case for marijuana
decriminalization in your April 3 editorial.

Marijuana prohibition has done little other than burden millions of
otherwise law-abiding citizens with criminal records. The University
of Michigan's "Monitoring the Future Study" reports that lifetime use
of marijuana is higher in the United States than any European country,
yet America is one of the few Western countries that use its criminal
justice system to punish citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis.
The short-term health effects of marijuana are inconsequential
compared to the long-term effects of criminal records.

Unfortunately, marijuana represents the counterculture to many
Americans. In subsidizing the prejudices of culture warriors,
government is subsidizing organized crime. The drug war's distortion
of immutable laws of supply and demand causes big money to grow on
little trees.

The only clear winners in the war on marijuana are drug cartels and
shameless tough-on-drugs politicians who've built careers confusing
drug prohibition's collateral damage with a relatively harmless plant.
The big losers in this battle are the taxpayers who have been deluded
into believing big government is the appropriate response to
nontraditional consensual vices.

Robert Sharpe

Policy Analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy Washington, D.C.