The United States just passed the two million mark for citizens
incarcerated. I prepared my signs for the protest in front of the
county jail with a heavy heart. I know grandstanding politicians have
used this drug war to militarize the police forces of America.
Politicians have given carte blanche to law enforcement in the form of
no-knock raids that all too often end in the mistaken death of a
law-abiding citizen like Ismael Mena in Denver, Colorado. I have
witnessed the dismantling of the constitutional rights I hold so dear,
especially the Fourth Amendment relating to unlawful searches and seizures.

After 30 years of an internal war, $1 trillion spent and, at best, a
10 percent efficacy rate, by the DEA's own admission, I am sad, mad
and demand a change in this ignorant failure of a policy.

Are we such zealots that we will continue to allow the government to
arrest another 700,000 marijuana users next year like we did last
year? Are we going to allow the government to ignore the medical
marijuana initiatives duly passed into law by the citizens of at least
seven states? Under any other circumstance, wouldn't we call this a
police state?

I'm afraid that the land of the free has been turned into the land of
the free to do exactly what we are told.

John Morgan Duty II,
Spokane, WA