Homeless in Arizona

Pot deterrence only subsidizes drug cartels

Robert Sharpe 5:36 p.m. MST June 19, 2015

Letter: Spending all our time and money fighting pot has done far more damage than the actual drug.

Let's assume the reefer madness presented by Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk in her Tuesday op-ed is all true ("Safe pot? Tell that to the 62 kids who died, My Turn). Are criminal records and jail cells appropriate health interventions?

I ask about health interventions because we already know that marijuana criminalization is not an effective deterrent. The United States has almost double the lifetime rate of marijuana use as the Netherlands, where marijuana has been legally available for decades.

If the goal is to deter use, marijuana prohibition is a catastrophic failure. If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to subsidize violent drug cartels, prohibition is a grand success. The drug war distorts supply and demand dynamics so that big money grows on little trees.

The criminalization of Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis has no basis in science. The war on marijuana consumers is a failed cultural inquisition, not an evidence-based public health campaign. It's time to stop the pointless arrests and instead tax legal marijuana.

— Robert Sharpe, policy analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Arlington, VA