Pubdate: Sun, 11 Jan 2009
Source: Eastern Arizona Courier (AZ)
Copyright: 2009, Eastern Arizona Courier
Contact:  http://www.eacourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1674
Author: Richard Mack
Note: Richard Mack, spokesman for LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)

COURIER'S SUPPORT OF WAR ON DRUGS 'UNTHINKABLE

The Courier's recent editorial applauding the war on drugs and its 
continuance is empty and shallow. The so-called war on drugs has been 
a huge failure, and its unwavering support by governments and 
newspapers is entirely counterproductive. We never have and we never 
will arrest away our community's drug problem.

We spend more than $70 billion every year in our country to stop 
illegal drugs, and what has it profited us? Gangs, terrorists and 
even some banana republic dictators all use the drug black market to 
fund their nefarious causes as a direct result of drug law 
prohibitions that have created such astronomical profits from drug 
dealing. Make no mistake about it -- our laws have created this black 
market. Furthermore, hemp has hundreds of domestic uses including oil 
and fuel, but we ignore that phenomenal possibility. Why?

The Courier would have us all believe that blood would be running in 
the streets if we legalized drugs. It already is, and we continue to 
ask our police to risk their lives to stop it. We have not stopped 
anything! Not one child, not one high school student, not one family 
has been protected from the scourge of drug abuse. When one dealer is 
arrested, two more take his place.

I take no comfort in such a system, and neither should you. No one 
should think that drug prohibition has provided peace or safety 
because it has been just the opposite.

Your argument is laced with statistics regarding the dangers of drug 
usage. That is a very effective scare tactic, but the truth is that 
any teenager can still get any illicit drug at any high school in 
this country. We can't even keep drugs out of our prisons, yet we try 
to pretend that the drug war has accomplished something.

The drug war is an exercise of futility and is correctly assailed by 
Abraham Lincoln when he said, "Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of 
reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation 
and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law 
strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."

I totally agree with the Courier that we need to fight drug abuse, 
but for anyone to pretend that what we have been doing has had some 
benefit is unthinkable. It is not our government's job to protect us 
from our own stupidity. There are no lines of people, young or old, 
waiting for the opportunity to use drugs as soon as they are 
legalized. Anybody who wants to can do so now. The reason drugs are 
pushed is because of their huge profits, and the huge profits exist 
because of the laws prohibiting them. Take away the profit, and you 
take away the pusher.

If I had to choose between keeping the course with the drug war as 
presently constituted or legalization, I'd take legalization.

Richard Mack,

spokesman for LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)

Safford
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