CRIMINAL RECORDS DON'T CURB DRUG USE

To The Editor:

While criticizing marijuana law reform in neighboring Canada in "Cold front barrels north on Canada's GI stand" ( May 17, p.  2 ), Bill O'Reilly makes the common mistake of assuming that punitive laws actually reduce use.  The University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future Study reports that lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the United States than in any European country, yet America is one of the few Western countries still using its criminal justice system to punish citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis.

Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco.  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, the U.S.  government is subsidizing organized crime.

The drug war's distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand makes an easily grown weed literally worth its weight in gold.  The only clear winners in the war on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless tough-on-drugs politicians who've built careers on 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 that big government is the appropriate response to non-traditional consensual vices.  Robert Sharpe ARLINGTON, VA.

Editor's note: Robert Sharpe is a political analyst at Common Sense for Drug Policy.