IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE

Dear Editor, We have spent Billions of dollars in this country trying to
stop drug use. We now have more people in jail and prison for this than
ever before. We have tried interdiction all over the country and it's
borders. It has failed and continues to fail. It is an incredible waste of
valuable manpower and extremely dangerous for these people. Continuing down
this road will get us nowhere.

It is obvious we cannot stop drugs reaching our people, whether they
originate outside our borders, or are produced here. There are two sides,
supply and demand. We must face the absolute fact we cannot stop the
supply. Why? There is just too much money being made. It is simple, we must
work on the demand side. We must do two things. #1- get real, get blunt
with what drugs do to us. Young people, and also older people, need to be
shown in horrible graphic detail what drugs can and will do to us.

#2- We need to educate our children before they get hooked. Methamphetamine
for instance, does some seriously bad things to us. #1, it affects the
pleasure center of our brain to give those who first try it great pleasure.
#2, it then changes this pleasure center so that the same amount of meth
doesn't give us the same pleasure anymore. We must use more to get the same
feeling. #3- meth also changes the pleasure center of our brain so that
Nothing Else is able to give us pleasure. This is paramount. This is why
and how meth "takes over your life." Nothing else matters-not sex, friends,
wives, children, relatives, work, religion, Nothing.

We must get our heads out of the sand and legalize a number of drugs. This
would put the criminals out of business- a business that makes a lot of
money, pays no taxes, and is extremely violent. We would then control three
things-the amount of drugs, the purity, and strength- making them
dependable. Many people die each year from accidental overdose because the
same drug brought from the same criminal is several times stronger than
before. Result? Accidental overdose and death. Now we could tax drugs and
use some of that money for rehab and education. We could take the billions
we are already spending on interdiction, and finance the control side. No
question, we would spend less than we do now, so it would cost us less than
nothing. We could save billions.

Talk to law enforcement. If we legalize drugs, more than 50% of crime would
be eliminated, allowing our law enforcement people to have time to do work
other than chasing druggies and their suppliers. There are some dangers. We
would lose a few people to overdosing once they could legally buy drugs for
far less money than they cost today. This is bad, but we are already losing
them now, and will continue to do so. This may sound drastic to some
people. What we are doing has failed, and continues to fail, with no
possibility for it to ever succeed. Make the proposal to legalize, and
watch the rates come out in the open to fight it.

If someone has a better idea, let's hear it.

Tom Thomas

West Chester