Staff Position on Pot Ignores Growing Costs

To the editors:

I’m not sure what the Harvard Crimson editorial staff has been smoking, but its recent piece in favor of marijuana legalization reflects by-gone science and druggie-drivel hardly worth so much space in a prestigious college paper (Editorial, “Decriminalize Marijuana,” April 12).

Playing into the hands of billionaire pro-legalization forces like George Soros, the Staff wrongly gives the impression that a quarter of a million harmless pot smokers were arrested and locked up in jail. In fact, that number represents many different contexts: people who plead down from trafficking to possession; people with other more serious crimes which they have been arrested for, in addition to marijuana use; or those who are cited for smoking pot in a public place and are fined about $100, as with a parking ticket. As the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency reported, only 7,000 people are in federal and state jails combined where marijuana possession was their most serious offense. Our criminal justice system is not focused at all on pot smokers; indeed, 12 states have decriminalized marijuana since 1978. That isn’t to say our current policy is perfect, but it is this precise drug strategy that has led to a reduction, since 20 years ago, in regular drug users by almost half, a drop by adolescents of two-thirds and a cocaine rate plummeting more than 75 percent. I guess those statistics were too inconvenient to put in an article which sounds straight like it would come straight out of the mouths of Cheech and Chong.

How inconvenient too was it to simply describe the Dutch pot experience yet forget to report the consequences: a 200 percent rise in adolescent marijuana use since the commercialization and legalization of the drug in that country and a transformation of the Netherlands to the ecstasy-producing capital of the world.

Even President Jimmy Carter, whom you quote from 25 years ago, is now anti-marijuana. The 1972 commission report you cite is completely out of date since it relies on the scientific knowledge known only up to that date—no wonder only long-time drug legalization advocates seem to still mention it. It would be like touting cocaine as a safe drug now because in 1900 there was no scientific evidence yet to show its harms. In fact, marijuana use has now been shown to adversely affect those regions involved in coordinating and regulating body movements (including contributing to car crashes, second only to alcohol alone); those involved in learning, memory and stress response; those that integrate the cognitive functions; and the reward center of the brain. Moreover, one marijuana cigarette is akin to four tobacco cigarettes in terms of the amount of tar, five tobacco cigarettes in terms of the amount of carbon monoxide intake and ten tobacco cigarettes with respect to the amount of damage to the airways. It is no wonder that half of teens and adolescents in substance abuse treatment are there for marijuana only. The current scientific consensus is that marijuana is not a benign drug. Solid social and scientific research provides the basis for maintaining our current laws—even if they are as soft as parking tickets—so as to not make marijuana commercially available.

Kevin A. Sabet

Oxford, England

April 14, 2002

Kevin A. Sabet is a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University where he is studying for a Ph.D. in drug policy issues. He is a former speech writer former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey.