THE INSANE WAR ON DRUGS

To the editor:

"Should a SWAT team break down your door at 3 o'clock in the morning
and shove a shotgun in your face while they tear your home apart and
put your family's life in danger, looking for evidence that you might
be hurting yourself?" In 10 years of asking this question, I have yet
to hear an affirmative response. For over four decades, an insane war
on drugs has been waged -- not on cocaine, heroin or marijuana -- but
on the people of this nation. Inner cities have been turned into war
zones, young men have been imprisoned and gang-raped by AIDS-infected
inmates and respect for the rule of law has been all but completely
destroyed in the eyes of the young.

Indeed, whole police departments have been corrupted by the insidious
effects of organized crime and the illegal drug traffic, all in a
dubious effort by the political class to protect us from hurting
ourselves. As a result, use of drugs among the young has tripled,
addiction goes unchecked, respect for the law is gone.

We're not the only country seeing that nanny states don't work.
Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland and Portugal have decriminalized
most or all drugs, and all saw reductions in theft, violence,
break-ins and organized crime. Portugal has even reported a reduction
in AIDS transmission rates -- at least, those caused by sharing of
needles. Do we, as a nation, still have the backbone to confront
difficult issues like this? Will we continue to legislate in fear and
ignorance, hoping that our criminal justice system will somehow
develop the omnipresence to protect people from their mistakes? How
many violent offenders will be released from prisons in order to make
room for pot smokers? How many innocent lives will we allow the
political good old boy network to ruin before we finally reign in
that arbitrary power that is corrupting the whole process?

Albert "Max" Abramson

Seabrook