Guest Column by John F. Wilson

War on drugs is an insane failure

We're not learning from mistakes and success of past

Legalize drugs? Curiously, support can be found in the words of drug war
advocates.

"Corruption among law enforcement agency personnel continues to be a major
impediment to cooperative investigations. Law enforcement initiatives
appear to have had only a slight, if any, impact on drug transportation and
distribution organizations..." Jane C. Maxwell, Texas Commission on
Alcohol and Drug Abuse, June 1996.

"Historically, prohibitions have not been effective and are always very
costly to support." City Judge John Roberts, Waco, January 1997.

"At best we will stop 10 percent of all illegal drugs bound for U.S. soil.
The ten percent interdiction rate is supposed to deter the 90 percent
success rate." Brad Watson, DEA, Heart of Texas Area Drug Task Force, 1995.

"This is not a war that can be won in a year or so. It's not a battle where
we can achieve total victory." Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, national drug
czar, 1996.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same old thing over and over again
and expecting a different result." candidate Bill Clinton, July 1992.

The war on drugs, by definition, is insanity. By their own admission, drug
war advocates are impractical visionaries committed to unsound strategy.

Year after year, "over and over again," drug war strategists continue
assertions that legalization would be admitting failure. Changing strategy
is not failure. Failure to change unsuccessful strategy is failure.

Legalization's gains

Legalization is not failure. Legalization is a proven success. For example,
nicotine is a drug with a very high potential for addiction. In the past 25
years, addictive use of illegal drugs has not changed, but addictive use of
nicotine has been cut in half without sending one person to prison or
vowing to stop the drug at its source.

In the 1500's, many European countries experimented with tobacco
prohibition. Tobacco was illegal and the death penalty was imposed for mere
possession. Tobacco use increased.

The zero tolerance policy for tobacco failed as criminal penalties for drug
use typically do. Americans are quick to recognize the folly of forcing
legal drugs into the illicit market through prohibition.

One benefit of legalization will include a restricted clinic based system.
Clinics of this nature provide safe treatment for existing drug abusers as
well as proven methods of reducing use.

Such a system worked in Shreveport, from 1919 to 1923, and dried up the
illicit market. Crime dropped and many of the addicts were able to be
employed.

Far more accurate data concerning responsible use as well as addiction will
emerge leading to a better understanding of drug use.

Beneficial uses

All drugs have the potential to restore health or remove health depending
on how we use them. For example, for over 20 years the U.S. Government has
been quietly supplying eight Americans with marijuana to be smoked for
medical purposes. These eight Americans are using marijuana responsibly and
many are gainfully employed.

The primary defense against drug abuse is found in individual
responsibility, not in the warmonger mentality of those opposed to
legalization. Resources would be best spent in education and prevention
programs that help our children make the selfmotivated choices necessary
in understanding the consequences of drug use.

We can teach our children and ourselves protection from drug abuse. We
cannot protect anyone from the madness inherent in a market dominated by
illegal drug profiteers and war insanity.

Waco resident John Wilson, who says he uses marijuana under a doctor's
recommendation, is active in the effort to legalize medicinal marijuana.