THERE ARE NO VICTORIES IN THE WAR ON DRUGS, ONLY VICTIMS

There's a war going on, adding more victims each day. Stories such as
these, representing less than one-month's-worth of drug war abuses,
are still far too common:

1. An estimated 6,290 drug-related murders occurred last year in
Mexico, six times the standard definition of a civil war, according
to a leading scholar at the Brookings Institution.

2. Within 24 hours, the president and the army-chief-of-staff of
Guinea-Bissau, a small country in Africa, lost their lives following
violent explosions linked to the drug trade.

3. Engaged in a "battle against drug trafficking" along a busy
highway connecting Houston with Louisiana, police in Tehana, Texas
have been increasing city coffers by seizing cash from black
motorists - including a grandmother and an interracial couple -
without charging them with a crime.

4. Two executives with the Mutual Benefits insurance company have
been charged with orchestrating a billion dollar Ponzi scheme that
allowed narcotics traffickers to purchase life insurance policies
payable upon the deaths of people with AIDS and other fatal diseases.

5. After a disabled Colorado medical marijuana patient was busted
for growing a couple of marijuana plants, police checked county
records, found that he had paid off his mortgage with accident
settlement money, and started forfeiture proceedings against him,
profiting their agency while seizing his home.

6. After learning of vandalism and several thefts in a Baltimore
neighborhood, about two dozen SWAT officers, wearing all black with
guns drawn, raided a nearby mobile home belonging to a computer
analyst with no criminal record; they handcuffed his wife and shot
his dog near his bed.

7. Suspicious of drug sales, an Ontario, Canada, high school vice
principal took away a student's cell phone, deleted its numbers,
summoned the holders of the numbers to his office, and forced them to
confess to drug trafficking.

8. A farm purchased and operated by widows from Colombia's civil war
was decimated by the chemical defoliant spray used by U.S.
contractors to kill coca plants on 2.6 million acres of Colombian
land at the cost of a half billion dollars.

Angry Yet?

There are actions that you can take to end this failed and costly
drug prohibition. Here are several suggestions:

a. Write a letter. Articles about each of these atrocities (see
references below) can be found in our DrugNews Archive,
http://www.drugnews.org/

Each article contains an e-mail address or web link to directly
contact the source publication. It's "point and click" access to
editors and Websites that want to hear what you think.

b. Join local, state or federal groups working on drug policy reform
here and around the world. Our Drug Policy Central provides web
services to more than 120 drug policy focused organizations.

Check out http://www.drugpolicycentral.com/hosting/clients.htm for a
group in your area.

Hate the drug war, but can't locate a group near you? Join DrugSense
at http://www.drugsense.org/ to find and network with thousands of
like-minded people.

We're able to get the word out about the incredible harms of the drug
war and alternatives to prohibition because people like you.

Donate. It's quick, easy, and secure. Just visit
http://www.drugsense.org/donate. Help stop this war on our personal
rights and freedoms.

Get involved. Write. Join. Donate.

References to the articles about the drug war victims described above:

(1) Mexico. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n296/a09.html

(2) Guinea-Bissau, Africa. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n294/a06.html

(3) Tenaha, Texas. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n293/a04.html

(4) Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n291/a10.html

(5) Denver, Colorado. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n272/a04.html

(6) Baltimore, Maryland. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n246/a07.html

(7) Peterborough, Ontario. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n259/a04.html

(8) Colombia. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n262/a03.html

Convinced? DONATE NOW to help us stop the War on Drugs.

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