DRUG PROHIBITION PROFITS GOVERNMENT

Cannabis has no lethal dose, and its pharmacological effects are not known
to have caused a single death in 5,000 years of recorded history.

The unseen driving force against medical (or unrestricted adult)
legalization of cannabis is the fact that cannabis can't be patented. This
precludes the need for big business to be involved and that fact makes
cannabis commercially unattractive, pharmaceutically speaking. It seems
that if it can't be profitized successfully, the government can't justify
legalization.

Unfortunately, a change in current policy (prohibition) would necessitate
that the alternative (legalization) reap more profits than our present
policy does. Maybe politicians are required to adhere to the party line of
prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison industrial
complex, the drug testing industry and the politicians themselves can't
live without the budget justification, not to mention the invisible profits
such as forfeiture of property that prohibition affords them. The drug war
also promotes, justifies and perpetuates racist enforcement policies and is
diminishing many freedoms and liberties that are supposed to be
inalienable.

MYRON VON HOLLINGSWORTH,
Fort Worth, Texas