POT PROHIBITION IS THE PROBLEM

As a registered Republican since Ronald Reagan first ran for governor
in California, I can only agree with Jessica Peck Corry ("Republican
moms for marijuana: 'Time to legalize is now,'" July 26) about
legalizing marijuana.

I finally got so tired of the GOP's blindness about a
counterproductive drug crusade that I no longer support any Republican
candidates.

When I got to checking the history of drug prohibition, I found that
the primary instigators and promoters of this lunatic policy have
always been Republicans.

Teddy Roosevelt began with a short-lived opium ban in the Philippines
(circa 1905) that had to be abandoned because it made governing the
colony almost impossible.

That failure did not deter the drug warriors. By 1914 they began
banning drugs in the United States.

The drug crusade has been a complete failure for more than 90 years,
but the Republican party refuses to abandon its lunatic attitudes
about meddling in people's lives.

Under the guise of "saving people from themselves," these feckless
prohibitionists have created the world's largest prison system and
shattered hundreds of thousands of families in the process.

The escalation of penalties combined with massive enforcement has
caused every citizen to lose some degree of their freedom in the
futile effort to eliminate drugs.

Just for the record, history shows that there was no such thing as
drug gangs, criminal drug cartels or any such thing as "drug crime"
prior to prohibition. When drugs were legal, no one was robbing,
whoring and murdering to buy what could be had cheaply and legally at
the corner pharmacy.

All of the "drug crime" we have is a direct result of idiotic drug
laws.

Nevertheless, counterproductive drug laws are still zealously
supported by the GOP.

Floyd Krautner

Bakersfield, Calif.