LEGALIZING DRUGS MIGHT HELP CITY

Columnist Brian Lewis says local merchant Edgar Hagens sees "drugs"
where others see "gangs."

I agree, and that leads me to ask, "Why not then take drugs out of
the equation?"

After all, drug abuse is not a criminal problem. It's a medical
problem. Individual people use drugs for individual reasons, but I
doubt any user sets out to use drugs simply to break the law.

I believe a person's abuse of drugs should be left to those best
qualified to persuade the abuser that there is a better way. And
those best qualified are not deputy sheriffs, police officers, jail
guards or prison wardens. They are medical doctors, psychiatrists,
psychologists and counselors.

There is, of course, one socially responsible reason for the criminal
arrest of someone using drugs. If a person commits a crime against
person or property, whether drug-induced or not, I think the
authorities should haul them off to jail.

That was what happened to Mel Gibson. His drug of choice -- tequila
- -- resulted in his arrest for driving while under the influence,
which was the crime. Abusing alcohol before he sat down behind the
wheel was symptomatic of his disease. Only because our justice system
is blind do we believe he would have been guilty of two crimes if the
deputy sheriff had found methamphetamine, marijuana or cocaine in his
car instead of tequila.

Drug use and abuse should be decriminalized. Those who need drugs
should be allowed to use them under the direction of a physician.
Those who need drugs and abuse them so that they become a danger to
themselves or the community should be subject to civil commitment to
a treatment facility. Those who commit a crime under the influence of
a drug should be punished for the crime and treated for drug abuse.

I have lived long enough to see society evolve to comprehend
alcoholism as a disease. If that drug can be decriminalized and
regulated, I would think other mind-altering agents could be as well.

The 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition and put the bootleggers out
of business.

Decriminalizing drug use might do the same for any gang in
Springfield -- and for all the hillbilly meth cooks, the Colombian
cocaine kingpins and the leftover Taliban warlords growing heroin
poppies in Afghanistan.

One thing is certain, they would no longer be able to profit from our
collective ignorance and individual pain.

Gary Presley lives in Springfield.