WAR ON DRUGS: THIS WAR'S A PROBLEM, NOT A SOLUTION

As Gary Johnson, the Republican governor of New Mexico has understood, our
political leaders must realize that drugs and drug use are, for better or
worse, a part of human culture.

Back in 1900, the government's own reports show that drug use affected one
in every 200 Americans. Now, after nearly a century of nefarious and venal
policies to control human behavior by means of a war, all that has been
wrought is the waste of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, the
destruction of millions of individuals and their families, and the creation
of the largest socialistic prison industrial complex in the world. And now
the government, though all its bluster and spin, actually reports that drug
use is affecting three out of every 200 Americans -- a 300 percent increase.

Clearly, the drug war is itself a pandemic, life threatening problem. The
political cures are causing far more harm than America's consensual drug
use could or would ever cause.

Glenn H. Early
Colville, Wash