PROHIBITION OF DRUGS ONLY LEADS TO DISASTER

Editor, The News:

I agree with letter writer Chris Buors ("Restore our natural right to
use drugs," Opinion, May 26).

The fact is that whenever the state intervenes in human activity, a
disaster results.

There is precedent in our society for the argument that any human has
the right to use any plant on this Earth as desired.

That precedent is in the Bible, in Genesis, where all plants and
animals are given to humans to use. Last check I could find no
exceptions.

For example, the clause "And the Lord God sayeth that should any
adult be using such plant for pleasure the Lord sayeth unto the state
that you shall incarcerate that individual, take away his/her
freedom, subject them to sexual assault in a prison and thou shalt
saddle this person with a criminal record for life.

"Thou shalt confiscate his/her assets and take away their children
and kill their livestock. Thou shalt build the biggest prison
industrial complex in the world to achieve this objective.

"Thou shalt aerially spray that person's crops in order to destroy my
creation."

This clause simply does not exist in Genesis.

The fact is that heroin and cocaine are the result of prohibition.
Before prohibition, people did not use drugs intravenously.

They used these substances in teas, soft drinks, wines, cough syrups,
and in the case of opium, in pipes.

So AIDS, hepatitis, rampant prostitution and all other social
problems regarding drugs are largely the result of prohibition.

The problem of marijuana grow houses are the result of prohibition.

It is time to realize that prohibition is the end of government.

Once a prohibition is imposed, society has less control. What we need
is regulation.

Regulation gives the security and control that society expects from
prohibition, but will never achieve.

Of all the millions of years humans have been on this planet, we have
had the prohibition of marijuana and opiates for only 70 years and,
like alcohol prohibition, it has been a disaster.

Albert Einstein said that "insanity is doing the same thing over and
over and expecting different results."

He was right.

Let's not import the most disastrous programs of the 19th century
into the 21st.

Chuck Beyer

Victoria