ADDICTED TO DRUG WAR

Marijuana arrests, convictions, incarcerations and the seizure of
property in marijuana cases constitute the great majority of
"drug-war incidents." Without marijuana prohibition, the War on Drugs
and its bloated budgets would simply not be justifiable, nor the DEA,
nor foreign intervention, nor political anti-drug posturing; without
marijuana prohibition the whole war on drugs would soon fall apart.

America is in the throes of an addiction, to be sure. But it is to
drug prohibition far more than to drug use. Enormous and wildly
increasing budgets are squandered on ever-higher doses of the drug
prohibition habit, and vehement denials that the prohibition habit is
the problem are heard along with pronouncements that with one more
big fix of "enforcement and interdiction" the drug problem will be
resolved. And in great irrational fear of the imagined rigors of
withdrawal, the addict is ready to commit any disgrace, deception,
crime or doublethink whatsoever to get his fix. Drug prohibition has
become a "monkey on the back" of democracy itself.

Larry Seguin

Lisbon, N.Y.