REPEAL DRUG PROHIBITION

Editor:

Your editorial "Overcrowded Prison System" (July 8) prompts, once
again, a call for common sense: repeal drug prohibition.

Ironically, it appeared on the same page as Charley Reese's column
(http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese384.html) headlined "Legal
System Is Perverted." Though the case he cited was not related to drug
policy, Mr. Reese is, nevertheless, a most articulate and outspoken
opponent of our nation's drug polices - policies which foster
international crime cartels, street gangs, narco-terrorism, use by
minors, clandestine meth labs, police corruption, overburdened courts,
and of course, explosive growth in prison populations by inmates who
are neither violent nor thieving. And, to put it lightly, the "War on
Drugs" has perverted our legal system.

Just as alcohol prohibition brought on an explosion of home-spun
stills and the infamous "bathtub gin" in which impurities often caused
blindness, modern day drug prohibition has fostered the proliferation
of clandestine meth labs which virtually no one wants in their
neighborhoods and communities but are condemned to suffer so long as
the government encourages the black market to prevail through
prohibition.

In every even-numbered year, it seems grandstanding Republicans and
Democrats renew spouting off their drivel about getting ever tougher
on "drugs" as if it costs nothing to incarcerate offenders and
supervise them after their release.

Remember back in the 1980s how the American people were "promised" a
"drug-free America" by 1995? What a joke! How much more proof do they
need in order to admit the experiment has failed and accept the fact
that a certain percentage of the population will use "drugs" no matter
what? Are Americans all really just a bunch of moronic imbeciles who
will never learn from history and ignore the facts? Or is it that
their elected officials insist on representing them as such?

If our elected officials were actually serious about reducing crime
and freeing up vast numbers of prison bunks for violent and thieving
offenders, the choice is obvious. Trouble is nobody wants to admit
failure, and the few politicians that try to initiate dialog for
reform are dismissed by the so-called mainstream media and political
establishment as crackpots despite the fact that the real crackpots
are the ones who insist on repeating the same thing over and over
again and expect different results.

I encourage you to view this documentary at www.americandrugwar.com
and see if it doesn't change your views regarding the motives and
integrity of our government in the United States.

William P. Perry

Beverly