BRING DRUGS OUT OF THE CLOSET

Recent news reports told of a house in Florida that was gutted and
filled with marijuana plants. This venture was so profitable to the
drug gang that ran it that they gave the illegal immigrant who took
care of the plants free room and board and told him after three years
he could keep the house.

Another recent story was about a remote part of a state park in
Washington that was secretly deforested and planted in marijuana by
Mexican drug lords and farmed by armed illegal immigrants.

These are just some recent incidents. We know of the situation in
Colombia where the drug operators actually threaten the government;
not to mention Afghanistan, where the opium poppies support the Taliban.

I remember Prohibition, which spawned thugs like Al Capone, whose
syndicate spread from liquor to gambling and all sorts of crime and
corruption. With drugs today it's the same, only big time and
international. We are the cause. We are the high price market for
these illicit products.

Money is said to be the root of all evil, and it is true for drugs as
well. If drugs weren't illegal, the price would fall though the floor
and there would be no incentive for criminals to trade in them.

Addiction is a very serious problem and must be confronted. But
consider tobacco. Tobacco, we know to be more hazardous to our health
than marijuana, yet tobacco is legal and marijuana is not. Compare
this effect on the price of each. No one is gutting houses or
deforesting parks to grow tobacco.

Illicit drugs deserve our serious attention and study, but just as we
are treating the problems of alcohol and tobacco, let drugs also come
out of the closet.

Seymour S. Block

Gainesville