I completely concur with legalizing marijuana (“For the love of health and revenue, legalize it already,” Jan. 24). In fact, I believe the entire “war on drugs” needs to be re-evaluated, but that is for another time. I am not alone with the belief that marijuana should be decriminalized.

President Carter said, “Penalties for drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana.” Even a U.S. president has advocated for a change in marijuana policies.

Many argue that this is just a liberal, hippie-concocted plan, but they are wrong. President Reagan’s former Secretary of State and the former Republican Gov. of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, both argued for outright legalization of some drugs, including marijuana. Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winner for economics, also endorses legalizing drugs in order to reduce the amount of crime and increase the quality of law enforcement. There are also judges, law enforcement officers, and other respected members of communities all over the United States who are calling for drug policy reformations.

I am not going to argue about the morals of drug use or anything else like that. I am going to explain how, in simple economic terms, marijuana policies, and the “war on drugs” in general, are failing. In 1973, the budget for the drug war was around $1 billion. In 2000, the budget was around $20 billion, which is a drastic increase. In fact, the drug war budget is more than the Departments of State, Interior and Commerce combined. Now most people usually would like their money to be used efficiently, but not when it comes to the drug war.

Marijuana policies are a perfect example of the failure of the drug war. In 1990, there were 10.9 million marijuana users, and in 1999, there were 11.2 million users. Interestingly, during this time period the arrest numbers for marijuana violations went from 300,000 in 1990 to 740,000 in 2000. Also, the United States now has the highest prison population ration per 100,000 in the world. Thus, it is plain to see that the marijuana policies are not working.

In regard to the argument in the article about marijuana as a gateway drug, it is almost self-evident that it is the policies which encourage other drug experimentation.

A study by The British Medical Journal illustrated this with a study in which 55 percent of respondents in San Francisco could obtain other drugs when purchasing marijuana; compare that with only 17 percent in the Netherlands, where you can obtain marijuana from local shops.

This is a much shorter version of an extensive research paper I did on the subject, and I would be more than happy to provide anyone with my sources or more information. There is one final thing I would like to illustrate — 105,000 Americans die per year because of alcohol, and 365,000 people per year die because of tobacco. How many Americans die each year because of a marijuana overdose? Zero! It is physically impossible to overdose on marijuana. Further, there are also safer forms of ingesting marijuana like vaporization, where most harmful smoke is eliminated, or eating, where all harms from smoking are eliminated.

After shedding some more light on this subject, now we can hopefully have some serious discussion about changing our drug policies for the better.

Jacob Larson

Senior

Political Science