Pubdate: Tue, 05 Nov 2013
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
Copyright: 2013 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/qFJNhZNm
Website: http://www.stltoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/418
Author: Roy Caton

WE'RE CROWDING OUR JAILS, WASTING MONEY BY ENFORCING MARIJUANA LAWS

Kenneth McManus asks how decriminalizing marijuana will help us 
better educate our children (Letters, Nov. 2). It won't and no one is 
claiming it will; that's not the issue.

The issue is that we have made things immeasurably worse by jailing 
otherwise productive, law-abiding citizens, overcrowding our jails 
and wasting billions of dollars on law enforcement that could be put 
to much better use. In addition, the sale and taxation of marijuana 
will raise hundreds of millions of dollars. This money could go a 
long way to addressing some of the other needs of our society. Hey, 
I'll bet we could allocate some of that money to education!

Mr. McManus is the director of the Alliance for Healthy Communities. 
It is his job to write letters like this. Marijuana prohibition has 
its roots in propaganda like the movie "Reefer Madness." This mindset 
still guides society's policy with respect to marijuana. The madness 
should stop.

Evidently we haven't learned much from the failure of alcohol 
prohibition; it just doesn't work and it provides organized crime a 
financial windfall. Big changes don't come easy and yes, there will 
be problems, but I think they will pale compared to what we have now. 
Get the facts and ignore the extremists on both sides of this issue. 
It is time to stop the madness.

Roy Caton Cedar Hill
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom