Pubdate: Thu, 05 Jul 2007
Source: Montgomery County Sentinel (Rockville, MD)
Copyright: 2007 Montgomery Sentinel Publishing, Inc
Contact:  http://www.thesentinel.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4451
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Bong+Hits+4+Jesus (Bong Hits 4 Jesus)
Author: Robert Sharpe

NOW ABOUT THOSE BONG HITS:

To the editor:

The Supreme Court should take a cue from the nonsensical banner that 
inspired their decision to limit free speech. It might do them some 
good to take a few bong hits for Jesus. Before sacrificing more civil 
liberties at the altar of the drug war,they should ask themselves, 
what would Jesus do? Would Jesus persecute, incarcerate and deny 
forgiveness to nonviolent drug offenders? Zero tolerance is decidedly 
un-Christian.

Morally, the drug war is wrong. On a practical level, the drug war is 
an abject failure. There were 786,545 marijuana arrests in 2005, the 
vast majority for simple possession. America is one of the few 
Western countries that punish citizens who prefer marijuana to 
martinis, yet lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the U.S. than 
any European country.

Thanks to the war on some drugs, the Constitution is increasingly 
irrelevant and the land of the free now has the highest incarceration 
rate in the world. This is not a policy worthy of Constitutional 
exemptions. The drug war has failed to keep drugs out of prisons, 
much less schools. The Supreme Court should protect civil liberties, 
not perpetuate drug war failure.

Robert Sharpe, MPA Policy Analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom