Pubdate: Fri, 04 Apr 2003 Source: Daily Orange, The (NY Edu) Copyright: 2003 The Daily Orange Corporation Contact: http://dailyorange.com/main.cfm?include=submit Website: http://www.dailyorange.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1287 Note: LTE form requires site registration Author: Robert Sharpe Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n484/a06.html Note: Headline by MAP editor. ANTI-DRUG ADS ARE DELIBERATELY MISLEADING The drug-terror advertisements revisited in Steve Krakauer's Thursday column, "White House finally learns drug lesson," premiered amid beer commercials during the Super Bowl. International terrorists have apparently caught on to something gangster Al Capone learned in the 1920s during alcohol prohibition. There are enormous profits to be made on the black market. With drug war budgets at risk during a time of shifting national priorities, drug warriors have cynically used drug prohibition's collateral damage to justify more of the same. The illicit drug of choice in America is domestically grown marijuana, not Colombian cocaine or Afghani heroin. The U.S. drug czar's misleading drug-terror propaganda may lead Americans to mistakenly conclude marijuana smokers are somehow responsible for the tragic events of 9/11. That's likely no accident. The drug war is in large part a war on marijuana, by far the most popular illicit drug. Taxing and regulating marijuana would render the drug war obsolete. As long as marijuana remains illegal and distributed by organized crime, consumers will continue to come into contact with hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. For obvious reasons, government bureaucrats whose jobs depend on the neverending drug war prefer to blame the plant itself for the alleged "gateway" to hard drugs. Students interested in ending the intergenerational drug war otherwise known as the war on some drugs should contact Students for Sensible Drug Policy at www.ssdp.org. Robert Sharpe, M.P.A. Program Officer Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, D.C. - --- MAP posted-by: Alex