FOLLOW THE MONEY TO UNDERSTAND DRUG PROHIBITION

Dear Editor,

As with the Fugitive Slave Act and the Volstead Act, the time has come
again for juries to not convict, this time on "drug crime."

Encouraging children to snitch on their parents; getting parents to
drug test and rat on their children; harassing the sick and dying is
despicable and against American ideals. Prohibition ruins young lives!
It destroys families without compunction or compassion.

When any drug's production and distribution is left to gangsters and
cartels it triggers more danger to the user and society by increasing
violent crime and corruption of public officials.

Alcohol is the only drug from which the fetus does not fully recover.
Children of alcoholics suffer abuse and neglect. What about all the
victims of fetal alcohol syndrome who fill our prisons? Where is the
law to protect a fetus from alcohol? Are we going to start removing
children from the homes of people who are alcoholics? "Alcohol use
makes domestic violence 8 times more likely. ... Marijuana use does
not," based on a 2003 study.

"Prohibition is responsible for children growing up with a total lack
of respect for the Constitution and for the law.'' This statement,
made during the prohibition of alcohol by Pauline Morton Sabin,
president of the Woman's National Republican Club from 1921 to 1926,
is true today as well.

Alcohol prohibition was called, "the noble experiment," while drug
prohibition has a more sinister quality. The lessons of history
continue to be ignored and truth has been suppressed concerning
marijuana being a miracle medicine, even curing cancer.

Drugs kill over 26 percent of the people who die each year in the U.S.
Tobacco,

Alcohol and pharmaceuticals kill about a quarter of us. Less than one
1 percent die from all illicit drug use, none, nada, no deaths are
attributed to marijuana. Clearly, our policies are more about profit
than the well being of the individual. The drug war hysteria is
created to take our minds off the three killers we tolerate.

Prohibition is the problem; regulation and treatment is the answer if
we want a compassionate policy that reduces harm. War is a tool
governments use to make us more accepting of their waste of our
precious lives and resources.

People are going to self-medicate, smoke, drink and party no matter
what the law says. The best we can hope from our drug policies is to
reduce the harm. The war on drugs has made us, "The Land of the
Used-to-be-Free!" America now has the dubious honor of being the most
incarcerated nation in history!

Leaders responsible for current quagmire will have to answer to a
higher power for their crimes against humanity. It's time to end the
terror by changing our intrusive, big-bully policies, both foreign and
domestic. The monetary costs are crippling and the human suffering
unconscionable.

Follow the money, expose the root of all evil to overcome cynicism
with hope for our vision of a free nation! Support for the federal war
on drugs is inconsistent with support for individual freedom,
constitutional government and the teachings of Jesus.

COLLEEN MINTER

Stephenville, Texas