Pubdate: Mon, 02 May 2011
Source: Ventura County Star (CA)
Copyright: 2011 The E.W. Scripps Co.
Contact:  http://www.vcstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/479
Author: Judith A. Beay

DRUG POLICY

Was does history teach us? When liquor was illegal, didn't the
gangsters smuggle in booze? Didn't the gangsters kill each other for
control of their territories?

Did the gangsters pay taxes on their sales? Were the prisons filled
with the booze peddlers and with the people who drank the booze?

Today, we don't lock up alcoholics (unless the person commits a crime
while intoxicated). Alcoholism is a disease just like drug addiction
is a disease.

Remove the profit motive from drugs and end the drug cartels that kill
thousands of people each year and corrupt all levels of government.
Eliminate the smugglers, the pushers and most of related crimes such
as prostitution and burglaries.

The billions are now spent on the failed War on Drugs that
incarcerates hundreds of thousands people could be used to treat drug
addicts and educate young people (as in smoking and liquor) to not use
drugs. If no one is buying illegal drugs, the profit motive is eliminated!

How many more decades will the USA continue with costly failed
policies?

Judith A. Beay,

Ventura 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake