IT'S TIME TO END THE WAR ON DRUGS

It seems my letter to the J-S Editor, "Terrifying Justice" Sept. 2,
generated very positive and supportive input from the public, and not
just locally, but rather from across the country. Sept. 5: "Letter
Prompts Anger, Sadness." Sept. 7: "Put an End To Prohibition." And
Sept. 7: "Keep Police in Line." One point, just how "controllingly"
out of control our law enforcement community has become. Understand.
I am not in anyway opposed to law enforcement. As a civilized
society we must have it. However, we do not need law enforcement
which functions in such a way that it becomes oppressive. Sadly
enough, in one way or another the problem stems from or is influenced
by the war on drugs, and why we need to fight to end the war on drugs.

To end this war, where do we start? There are so many important
reasons.

We have over a half million non-violent drug offenders clogging our
prisons and jails. Court dockets are a mess. Mandatory minimum
sentences, and inflexible sentencing guidelines, condemn many low
level offenders to years and even decades behind bars, often based
only on the word of a confidential informant, some of whom are even
compensated. With 2 million people behind bars, the U.S. leads the
world in incarceration at a level beyond any time in our history.

Drug prohibition creates a lucrative black market that causes
violence and disorder, particularly in the inner cities. It draws
young people into lives of crime. Laws in some areas criminalizing
syringe possession, the drive behind much underground drug use and
sales, encouraging needle sharing increases the spread of HIV and
Hepatitis C. Thousands of Americans die from drug overdoses or
poisonings by adulterants every year. Most of these deaths would be
preventable through quality control which would exist if drugs were
legal.

Our (America's) drug in the South American Andes fuels a continuing
civil war in Columbia, with prohibition-generated illicit drug
profits aiding its escalation. Opium growing, and the attempts to
stop it, both hurt Afghanistan's attempts at nation building and
helps our enemies.

Patients needing medical marijuana, and the people who provide it to
them, go without or they live in fear of arrest and prosecution.
Doctor's fears of running afoul of the law causes large numbers of
Americans in need of opiates for chronic pain to go under-treated or
untreated altogether.

Profiling assaults the dignity of members of minority groups, and of
the poor, denying them equal justice. From drug testing in our
schools, to SWAT and SLANT teams invading our homes and terrorizing
our children and handicapped persons, assaulting the citizenry's
very existence, privacy has been gutted.

That's not all of it, and it isn't a pretty picture. This is why we
must oppose drug laws - fight to end prohibition, for legalization -
because of the harm and the injustice that prohibition is inflicting
on so many people in so many different ways. Because we understand
that freedom is not just a right to control our bodies and what we
put into them, (even though that ought to be enough).

And for so many reasons that I don't know where to start - to save
the lives of the addicted, so many patients can be treated, for
privacy, for peace, for safety, to restore ethics in government, to
end the injustices large and small - for all these reasons and more,
we must put an end to the drug prohibition. These views are correct.
This cause is just. We must fight to make this a better world for
all.

N. Bill Smeathers

Freeport