DRUG CARTELS FOLLOWING FAMILIAR BUSINESS MODELS

I'm writing about Matt Potter's thoughtful letter, "War on some drugs"
[Dec. 1]. Certainly marijuana is very benign compared with tobacco and
alcohol. So why is marijuana still a criminalized product?

Beyond just the use of marijuana as medicine, why do so many of our
politicians want to keep a natural herb that has never been documented
to kill a single person a criminalized substance? Why do apparently
intelligent people want to arrest and jail other people who use or
sell this easy-to-grow weed?

Perhaps to understand their position we should study the history of
U.S. alcohol prohibition. The notorious gangster Al Capone made most
of his illegal money from alcohol prohibition. Capone often bragged
that he "owned" the city of Chicago. Obviously, he didn't own all of
the city of Chicago; however, he had most or all of the politicians
and police who ran the city on his payroll. Al Capone was a successful
businessman and it's not unreasonable to suspect that the drug cartels
of today are following his business model.

It's also not unreasonable to suspect that the drug cartels may have
many high-level politicians and police officials on their payrolls.
Obviously, the type of politicians the drug cartels would have on
their payrolls are those who advocate the continuation of the status
quo of drug prohibition, which is making the drug cartels so
fabulously wealthy.

I'm not saying that any specific so-called "drug warrior" is on the
payroll of the drug cartels -- just a little suspicious. I'm just a
little suspicious of the motives of all of the drug-war
cheerleaders.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.