DIMINISHING FREEDOMS

Thanks to Scott Davison for his insightful column. Think of all the
manpower, resources, time and effort devoted to cannabis prohibition. If we
devoted those people and resources to the interdiction of terrorists and
terrorism over the last 10 years we would likely still have a World Trade
Center and the more than 5,000 souls who perished inside while the drug
warriors used politics and propaganda and profane amounts of money to lie
and perpetuate their budgets.

Maybe the corrupt politicians and media are required to adhere to the party
line of prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison and
military industrial complex, the drug testing industry, the "drug
treatment" industry, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the politicians
themselves, et al, can't live without the budget justification, not to
mention the invisible profits, bribery, corruption and forfeiture benefits
that prohibition affords them. The drug war also promotes, justifies and
perpetuates racist enforcement policies and is diminishing many freedoms
and liberties that are supposed to be inalienable according to the
Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Myron Von Hollingsworth, Fort Worth, Texas