HEMP, MARIJUANA SHOULD BE LEGALIZED

To the Editor:

Regarding Adam Klein's April 8 column ( "Hemp, the perfect paper substitute" ), the United States is one of the few countries in the world that deny farmers the right to grow industrial hemp.  Apparently government bureaucrats in Washington can't tell the difference between a tall hemp stalk and a short marijuana bush.

Prior to the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, few Americans had heard of marijuana, despite widespread cultivation of its non-intoxicating cousin, industrial hemp.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican migration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association.

White Americans did not even begin to smoke marijuana until a soon-to-be entrenched government bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda.

Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been counterproductive at best.

According to a 2002 Time/CNN poll, 47 percent of Americans have smoked pot.  The reefer madness myths have long been discredited, forcing the drug war gravy train to spend millions of tax dollars on politicized research, trying to find harm in a relatively harmless plant.

The direct experience of millions of Americans contradicts the sensationalistic myths used to justify marijuana prohibition.  Illegal drug use is the only public health issue wherein key stakeholders are not only ignored, but actively persecuted and incarcerated.  In terms of medical marijuana, those stakeholders happen to be cancer and AIDS patients.

Reefer madness is a poor excuse for incarcerating Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis.  There is no excuse for denying farmers the right to grow industrial hemp.

Students who want to help end the intergenerational culture war, otherwise known as the war on some drugs, should contact Students for Sensible Drug Policy at www.ssdp.org.

Robert Sharpe, Policy Analyst

Common Sense for Drug Policy