WAR ON DRUGS IS AN OBVIOUS FAILURE

Police Chief Gary Yabuta's stance on the drug war is as it should be
(The Maui News, Jan. 22). Commissioned to enforce our laws, Mr. Yabuta
has no choice.However, Mr. Yabuta's argument that marijuana is harming
our youths in that its availability makes it difficult for young
people to make healthy lifestyle choices is archaic.

We have spent so much time and money trying to eliminate marijuana
only to conclude that the war on drugs is an obvious failure. The
scarcer anything is, the more valuable it tends to become.Keeping
marijuana illegal not only forces those who experiment with it to see
themselves as criminals, it also causes them to gravitate toward
others who have also chosen to experiment.

In the eyes of our youths, adults are hypocritical, insincere and
confused. They see adults drinking alcohol, crashing their cars,
beating their wives and children, nervously smoking cigarettes and
coughing while saying that smoking marijuana is bad for your health
and the future of our society. In the meantime, adults are out of
work, losing their homes, filing for bankruptcy and wondering how they
let greed get so far out of control.

We need to get our heads out of the sand. The quality of every
decision we make is a reflection of the level of clarity we have in
our perception of reality.

Steve Ababan