ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF WASTE IN WAR ON DRUGS

The War on Drugs waged by our federal, state, and local governments
has been, and continues to be, a disaster -- a very expensive
disaster. Over the years, hundreds of millions of dollars have been
spent on drug interdiction, with the result that rates of drug use and
abuse have remained for the most part unchanged. We incarcerate
thousands of otherwise unoffending people on drug charges, most of
these charges brought against users of marijuana -- a drug
considerably less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes. As destructive
as drug abuse can be to individual lives, more pernicious to society
as a whole is the war on drugs itself. Like Bush's "war on terror," it
makes things worse, not better.

The answer to the drug problem is simple: legalization. If we make
drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin legal in the way that hard
liquor is legal, we destroy the black market in drugs -- and eliminate
the extreme violence associated with this market. If drugs are made
legal, then no more drug raids, which means no more "collateral
damage" -- by that I mean the harm inflicted on innocent bystanders
such as Tarika Wilson and her baby.

Legalize drugs, then the immense amount of money we spend on enforcing
drug laws, prosecuting drug criminals and incarcerating those
criminals could be spent on providing treatment for drug abusers and
educating the public on the dangers of abuse -- a far more effective
and humane way of dealing with drugs in society than
interdiction.

Some fear legalizing drugs will lead to a dramatic increase in drug
use and abuse. Here a comparison with an early war on drugs can be
instructive. When Prohibition went into effect, it created a black
market in booze -- created, as it were, Al Capone. People who wanted
to drink found ways around the law. When Prohibition was finally
repealed, violence decreased, and there was not a dramatic increase in
alcohol use and abuse.

Over the years, the use of drugs has, as a result of prohibition, come
to be associated with criminals and crime. Politicians, therefore, are
reluctant to consider drug legalization for fear that they will appear
soft on crime. We citizens therefore need to make politicians
accountable for all the misery and mayhem the current drug prohibition
causes. Only then will they begin to act sensibly.

Kelly Anspaugh, Ada