WAR ON DRUGS HURTS THE PEOPLE IT SHOULD BE PROTECTING

Dear editor,

Cannabis has no lethal dose and its pharmacological effects have never
caused a single death in over 5,000 years of recorded history.

The (unseen) driving force against medical (or unrestricted adult)
legalization of cannabis is the fact that cannabis can't be patented. This
precludes the need for big business to be involved and that fact makes
cannabis commercially unattractive to the pharmaceutical, tobacco and
alcohol industries (lobbies). It seems that if it can't be profitized
successfully the government can't justify legalization even for the sick
and dying.

Furthermore, the war on cannabis drives the war on drugs. Without cannabis
prohibition, the drug war would be reduced to a pillow fight. This is the
politics and the economics of cannabis prohibition.

Maybe the corrupt politicians and media are required to adhere to the party
line of cannabis 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 Van Hollingsworth

Fort Worth, Texas