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