OUTLAWING METH THE UNDERLYING WOE

RE: "METH CRISIS Is Closer to You
Than You Think" commentary by D'Val Westphal Thomas Paine said, "These
are the times that try men's souls ..." Benjamin Franklin said, "Those
who would give up liberty for security deserve neither." Patrick Henry
said, "Is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the
price of chains and slavery? ... We hold these truths to be self
evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these rights
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ..." Westphal seems to
think that we should throw away our freedom because there is danger in
the use of some drugs.

We have already tried this solution with the same abject failure we
are having today when we prohibited alcohol.

In 5,000-plus years of human history, prohibition has always produced
the same results -- crime and corruption. The worst tragedy in this is
that the crime of murder is increased by bad laws -- which are nothing
more than religion enacted into law -- yet they seem to overlook this
problem when they call for more prohibition. People do dumb things to
themselves. Making it worse by prohibiting their folly simply makes
their problem my problem.

The drug itself is not the problem.

The massive crime and corruption created by prohibition is. One more
quote, George Santayana, "Those who cannot learn from history are
doomed to repeat it." Prohibition does more harm than good and
violates everything this country stands for.

Bill Koehler

Albuquerque