DRUG USE LOBBY

To The Editor:

In part I agree with the editorial "Crack Epidemic Can't Be Ignored.",
we do have a serious crack cocaine problem in this city, county, and
country including the crime associated with it. As a drug law reformer
I take issue with the editor's presumptuous label "recreational drug
use lobby".

Over the years the editors of the Ogdensburg Journal have penned some
very acrimonious editorials against people who dare to question the
wisdom of our government's war on drugs. Many of us have often tried
to explain to the editors our position to no avail. I would like to
make it perfectly clear to the editors that drug law reformers do not
advocate drug use, and that nobody I know of wants to see their
children involved with illicit or legal drugs including alcohol.

However, many of us in fact have come to the realization that drugs
are always going to be with us and we must learn to live with them as
safely as possible (harm reduction). The intentions of the
government's current drug policy -- reducing crime, drug addiction,
and juvenile drug use -- have not been achieved, even after nearly
four decades of a policy of "war on drugs". This policy, fueled by
over a trillion of our tax dollars has done nothing or very little to
reduce the levels of drug addiction in our nation, but has instead
resulted in a tremendous increase in crime and in the numbers of
Americans in our prisons and jails. With 4.6% of the world's
population, America today has 22.5% of the world's prisoners. But,
after all that time, after all the destroyed lives and after all the
wasted resources, prohibited drugs today are cheaper, stronger, and
easier to get than they were thirty-five years ago at the beginning of
the so-called "war on drugs".

Although the editor is correct to point out the horrible crimes that
have been linked to drug dealing, these crimes for the most part are
committed in the act of procuring and profiteering from drugs, a
result of prohibition. The illicit drug trade must be regulated by the
government or the criminal element will continue to flourish in this
lucrative black market regardless of how many law enforcement officers
are added, we simply cannot arrest our way out of this problem.

Lee Monnet