DRUG WAR HELPS ERODE NATION'S FREEDOM

As our nation comes to grasp with the images and reality of terror in our
streets, and together we begin to ask the hard questions that now must
urgently be answered.

It comes down to the exactly what questions we ask. In this case, it
is important to ask this one question: Who is the enemy? And though we
collectively given him some-name-bin-Laden, we owe it to the hour to
declare, as well, who our enemy is not.

In this time of seemingly necessary war, it is important that we U.S.
citizens bring an end to our own internal and unnecessary war against
ourselves.

By all accounting, we cannot win the war on drugs, yet we continue to
spend $20 billion-plus a year, ultimately to prosecute our own people
who are arguably more in need of medical care than jail time.

Also, it is well known that much of the financing of terrorist
organizations is in the form of illegal drug proceeds, resulting from
an inflated and lucrative underground market which would effectively
be undone by legalization and taxation.

It's time we declare who the real enemy is, and end the
constitutionally corrupt, and politically duplicit war on drugs and
release our resources to more effectively wage war on the real enemy,
as faceless as he seems to be.

We should challenge our leaders to solve the whole problem of
freedom-under-attack, not just the ugliest part of it.

MITCH BOWEN

Greenville