John Walters, the Bush Administration’s drug czar, came to Southern Colorado today to try and defeat Amendment 44, the ballot initiative that would legalize adult possession of up to one ounce of marijuna. His primary argument:

Drug Czar John Walters says legal or illegal, marijuana is and always will be part of a deadly and destructive business. “The same mafias that kill people on the boarder and slaughter judges and prosecutors in Mexico make the bulk of their money on marijuana sold here in the US,” said Walters.

Sounds like more Reefer Madness to me. SAFER Colorado’s Mason Tvert responds:

Campaign Manager Mason Tvert says the only thing that makes pot a gateway drug is its illegal status. “We’re forcing otherwise law-abiding citizens into an illegal market where they find illegal drugs,” said Tvert….”If adults who use alcohol use marijuana instead, there would be fewer cases of domestic violence, over-doses, death and so on,” said Tvert.

SAFER believes that alcohol is a more dangerous drug than pot. No one has ever died from smoking marijuana, but alcohol is responsible for a whole host of deaths — and not just of the imbiber but of innocent victims as well.