THE SPREADING DRUG WARS

The failed "war on drugs" is a variation on the failed prohibition of
alcoholic beverages during the 1920s and 1930s.

It has not brought any reduction in drug use, if the soaring prison
populations of nonviolent drug users is any indication. It has cost us
billions of dollars a year and destabilized countries such as Colombia
and Mexico. It is now destabilizing the United States, as the
kidnapping and violence move out of the border areas and ghettos and
into upscale neighborhoods.

You don't see dealers going into our high schools and selling beer or
cigarettes, because there's no profit in pushing a substance that is
legal. Drugs should be treated like alcohol and nicotine: Regulate
them and tax them. A whole criminal class in the U.S., Mexico,
Colombia and Afghanistan most likely would see the funding for their
criminal enterprises dry up immediately.

Lucy Cole

Eagle Rock