[420 Girl]

Re "As fire rages, the law protects us from marijuana," July 1: Kudos to Peter Schrag's common-sense call to tax and regulate cannabis. Despite the millions of tax dollars spent during last week's "Operation Southern Sweep," not one arrest was made by law enforcement, and the availability of marijuana in Northern California remains as plentiful as ever.

Let's acknowledge reality. The criminal classification of cannabis is disproportionate to its relative harmlessness to the user and to the well-acknowledged harmfulness of other substances - particularly alcohol and tobacco.

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that nearly 100 million Americans have tried cannabis, and relatively few have suffered deleterious health effects because of their use. Criminalizing these millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens is expensive, engenders disrespect for the law and alienates large numbers of the population - particularly young people.

A wiser national policy would regulate cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol - with the drug's sale and use restricted to specific markets and consumers. While such an alternative may not entirely eliminate the black market demand for pot, it would certainly be preferable to today's impotent criminal prohibition and would eliminate the need for more federal boondoggles like "Operation Southern Sweep."

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