Pubdate: Fri, 11 Jan 2002
Source: The Monitor (TX)
Copyright: 2002 The Monitor
Contact:  http://www.themonitor.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1250
Author: Mike Plylar
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n004/a12.html

DRUG WAR BLUNDER

To the editor:

Thank you for pointing out the shortcomings of Robert Novak's bizarre 
opinion in "Bad Combination" (Jan. 2).

In light of America's latest war and catastrophe, maybe a closer 
examination of our past, current and future policies, both foreign and 
domestic, is long overdue.

Can we afford the luxury of an excessive, deadly and disastrous civil war, 
like the War on Drugs, which devours fully 50 percent of all our 
law-enforcement resources -- while terrorists, wishing Americans the 
gravest of harm, live, move and train right here among us?

Are our national priorities skewed? Ask any postal worker if the white 
powder leaking from an envelope on their sorting table turns out to be 
cocaine, instead of some truly lethal biological agent, would they feel 
relieved? In their situation, how would you feel? Thank God it's only cocaine.

While Americans have chased each other for decades, dedicating phenomenal 
amounts of our national assets, searching for all manner of illegal plants, 
pills, powders and the like, our real enemies have literally invaded us. We 
all continue to pay the price for our government's drug war blunder and 
that's the real national tragedy.

MIKE PLYLAR

Kremmling, Colo.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth