FIND A RATIONAL APPROACH TO END THE DRUG WAR

For nearly 500 years, colonialist powers like England, Spain and
later the US made it their business to impose their will on lesser
countries, to force new religions and morals on all the "heathen
cultures" of this earth. In the process, they vilified and demonised
the use of such drugs as marijuana, coca and opium which previously
had been a recognised part of many religions, many cultures for
thousands of years.

In the early 20th century, corporate heads foresaw gleaming profits
in prohibiting the use of certain plants. They claimed that Chinamen
on opium were a threat to a decent society, that Mexicans and blacks
would rape white women after smoking marijuana, that prison or death
were too good for users and that the religious underpinnings of these
drugs were sacrilegious and evil.

These men of influence and wealth had the contacts, to force through
laws based on nothing more than rumours circulated through newspapers
controlled by these same interests. The American people were fooled
into believing they were saved and that the control and distribution
of these herbs and their extracts should be prohibited. This
"prohibited" drug commerce now exceeds US$400 billion per year.

Today, the US, through its drug-convention treaties, forces its ideas
of Judeo-Christianity, and all the attendant drug laws and morals on
the whole world. US media now ignores the ongoing drug reform in
England, France, Spain, Portugal, Canada and much of the rest of the
world. Research, experience and common sense have shown these
enlightened countries that the medieval drug laws are simply a
mechanism that if left unchecked, would someday devour the meaning,
the very fabric, of liberty.

The US now wants to repudiate the nuclear arms treaty and refuses to
sign five other treaties that otherwise have worldwide endorsement.
Our government paid no attention whatsoever when the US seats on the
UN Drug Policy and Human Rights panels were lost. We do not care. We
are willing to lock up more than two million of our own people in
order to support a growing prison-industrial complex. With the
"election" of Bush; his selection of Ashcroft for attorney general
and with Hutchinson and Walters to head up the DEA, the future seems
set here in the US; a more vigorous prosecution is assured.

The US leadership speaks now of preparing for the coming of a rogue
nation. A nation having no regard for the horrible destruction it may
create, a nation that has no regard for human rights. That rogue
nation is the United States of America.

I ask all government leaders, all citizens to please consider a
rational approach to ending this drug war. Help rid the earth of this
monster, spawned from a cesspool of hypocrisy.

Dean Becker

Drug Policy Forum of Texas, community liaison

www.cultural-baggage.com