End drug prohibition

When Mexico's president was elected in 2006, he said the war on drugs
was going to be his No. 1 priority. Since then, an estimated 34,000
people have died in Mexico as a result of the drug cartels fighting
over the trade routes for their illegal drugs. In September of this
year, 35 bodies were dumped on a busy freeway during rush hour as
people watched in horror.

You don't see Purdue Pharma pharmaceuticals beheading the employees of
Endo pharmaceuticals just because they are launching a generic version
of all four strengths of Oxycontin, for which Purdue Pharma holds the
patent. Instead, they are in court because these are legal drugs and
they have to go through the legal channels.

When you make drugs illegal, you create an illegal market that creates
illegal activity. We are using the same logic with drug prohibition as
we did with alcohol prohibition. During alcohol prohibition, not all
alcohol was illegal. Alcohol in medicine was legal and wine could be
used in religious ceremonies. Hard liquor, however, was illegal, which
led to the creation of bootleggers and the gangs fighting over the
trade routes for their illegal alcohol.

Remember the St. Valentine's Day massacre in 1929? We are not only
using the same logic with drug prohibition as we did with alcohol
prohibition, but we are getting the same results.

Dawn Palmer

Tarrant