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Alternative Drug Policy The first thing we must do is admit a few things: most of the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction, attributed to drug use are actually caused by drug prohibition and that prohibition coupled with the war on drugs has increased the number of people in the US above the age of twelve who have used illegal drugs from 4 million (two percent of the population) in 1965 to 112 million (46 percent of the population) in 2005, while maintaining the percent of the population addicted to drugs at exactly same the level for the past hundred years; 1.3 percent of the population. Once we have acknowledged those facts as the US Conference of Mayors unanimously did in June 2007, we can stop the horrors associated with prohibition by removing the profit motive generated within the drug culture. Step l: How do we do that? simple we end drug prohibition! We legalize drugs! We legalize all drugs legalize them so we can regulate and control them and keep them out of the hands of our children. "Ah..." I hear you saying, "But won't legalization cause everyone to use drugs? Won't we become a drugged -out zombie nation within a year ?" The answer is NO! Drugs were not illegal in this country until 1914 and we seemed to get through the first 200 years without that occurring. If we look around the world, we have many fine examples of policies we could try. Policies that show us drug use will not increase with legalization. In Holland where drugs have been virtually legal since 1976 the police look the other way unless the user and the seller are causing some other kind of trouble. If you are an adult, you can go into a coffee shop there and order from a menu that offers a multiple choice of several brands of marijuana and hashish. You make your choice, put your money on the counter and they sell you five grams of that product each time you walk through the door. You can smoke it there or put in a doggy bag and take with you nobody cares. In Holland, researchers conducted a survey to determine how many tenth graders had tried marijuana: 28 percent had tried it. Then they conducted the same survey in the United States. Here, where people like me will not only arrest your sons and daughters for possessing so much as one joint but we will take away their driver's licenses (even if the arrest occurred in their bedroom). That means if they live in rural America or the suburbs where there is no public transportation, they can no longer get to schools or hold gainful employment. If they reside in urban centers that have public transportation but happen to live in government- subsidized housing, we will not only throw them out of the house but their whole family will be evicted and if they live with their grandparents, those old folks will also have to hit the street, because the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in 2003 that this kind of massive punishment is OK. It is OK, according to them, because, "We are fighting a war on drugs" and when you fight a war nearly anything is acceptable. Also, thanks to the "zero tolerance" attitude fostered from years of prohibition, when this punished child finally gets free from the lockup and wants to better their condition by going back to school, the State tells him or her they can't get a government educational grant or loan for that schooling. However, in another crazy paradox of fighting a war on drugs, if they were simply convicted of murder or rape there would be no problem for them. Just apply for it and the loan would be available. In this country, 41 percent of tenth graders have used marijuana. How is that possible? Twenty -eight percent where marijuana is virtually legal and 41 percent where it's the devil's own 10