U.S. NEEDS 'TOUGH LOVE' INTERVENTION FOR DRUG-WAR ADDICTION

I am responding to Salim Jiwa's recent "Border Defended" story.

Open and trusting societies don't need spy cameras on their mutual
frontiers. Today, it is Big Brother's cameras peeking at you. Tomorrow,
perhaps it will be armed military troops as we now see along the border
with Mexico.

America seems intent upon imprisoning itself - building walls at a furious
pace to keep millions of its own people in - while engaging in an
escalating war to keep "them" and "their" drugs out.

Not only hypocritical in the extreme, it is antithetical to free markets
and, most important, free people.

Healthy relations between people and countries require honest, and yes,
sometimes painful feedback. It is time for both Canada and Mexico to call
for an "intervention", as it is known.

No troops, no guns. Just "tough" loving. And supportive families and
friends who encourage a very strung-out Uncle Sam to sit down and confront
his destructive drug-war habit. That is, before he does any more harm to
himself and those closest and most important to him.

Floyd Landrath
Portland, Ore.

Across the U.S., various police scandals are bringing to light the
institutional corruption engendered by the drug war.

The corruption associated with drugs is often cited as a reason to increase
drug-war spending. Yet, it is the laws themselves that give rise to this
corruption.

"B.C. bud," currently worth its weight in gold in the U.S., would be
virtually worthless, if legal.

America's disastrous experience with alcohol prohibition confirms that
criminalizeing a public health problem creates more problems than it solves.

On average, non-violent drug offenders in the U.S. spend more time in
federal prisons than violent offenders. Yet, "zero tolerance" has not
stopped the flow of drugs.

The U.S. is slowly becoming a police state. The "Land of the Free" now has
the highest incarceration rate in the world. We need to stop heeding the
politicians and lobbyists who use drug-war hysteria to manipulate the
public and generate profits.

While concern for children is the ruse used to fool the public, it is an
addiction to money and power that perpetuates our failed drug policy in
America.

Robert Sharpe,
Washington, D.C.