CASUALTIES OF THE DRUG WAR

It's Not Always the Sellers or Users Who Suffer

The drug-legalization movement has made great strides in recent years.
At one point in Los Angeles, there were more medical marijuana shops
than Starbucks.

Notwithstanding the camouflage of "medical marijuana," the underlying
premise of the legalization movement is that it "ain't nobody's
business if I do." In other words, that it harms no one else.

That couldn't be more wrong.

Jamaica is seeing violence in the streets of Kingston by gangs
supportive of a drug lord there wanted by the United States. That, in
turn, can't help the people of Jamaica who rely on the tourist trade.

Those who use and abuse illicit drugs in the U.S. are causing such
violence indirectly. On our own Southern border, nearly 20,000 people
have died on either side in the past three years, largely due to drug
violence. A pregnant U.S. consulate official and her husband were
among those killed in an apparent drug cartel hit in March -- as they
left a child's birthday party in Juarez.

Iraq and Afghanistan are safer!

Some say the problem is caused by the drugs' illegality. That's
preposterous. That's like saying rape is the product of laws against
it.

Indeed, a pawn shop owner here was murdered several weeks ago by an
apparent user of methamphetamines -- a drug concocted from legal
drug-store products. The drug problem is defined by drugs and what
they do to people, not by laws against their use.

Drugs last week took one of their more innocent victims in this area:
A police dog in Waynesboro was euthanized after its owner said it came
in contact with toxic meth-producing chemicals at a crime scene.

There is some disagreement at to whether the dog needed to be
euthanized; authorities are investigating, after the veterinarian who
put the dog down claimed it wasn't necessary.

Regardless, Po Po was a victim of illicit drugs, directly or
indirectly.

Still don't think it matters what you do?