LETTER OF THE WEEK

WE CHOSE THOSE DRUG GANGS

By Robert Guest

Re: "At the End of the Line - There are hidden costs of recreational
drug use," July 8 Editorials.

Let me tell you why you can step away from the sink and put down the
blood-washing soap: Your editorial points out negative externalities
of prohibition. By choosing prohibition, we have chosen everything
the editorial wants people to feel bad about.

Do you really think the Taliban can supply heroin better than Pfizer?
Do Colombian guerrilla armies sell us laptops or organic milk? Do we
have Oak Cliff gangs enforcing alcohol and tobacco turf and selling
beer to kids?

If we had legal markets for drugs, those entities would be out of
business. The government chose criminals and terrorists as our
nation's drug suppliers. We incarcerate millions of Americans and
conduct home invasion searches to enforce this failed policy.

This misguided guilt trip from The Dallas Morning News is typical of
those who do not understand that prohibition is the cause of our
nation's drug problems, foreign and domestic. We can only win the
drug war by ending prohibition.

Until then, spare me the moral outrage.

Robert Guest, Ennis

Pubdate - Sun, 15 Jul 2007

Source - Dallas Morning News (TX)

Referenced - http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n812/a01.html