PROHIBITION DOESN'T WORK; IT JUST CAUSES MORE PROBLEMS FOR
SOCIETY

The governor and a few legislators want you to believe their draconian
action against marijuana is for your benefit. But that isn't true. The
"drug war" has been going on for more than 70 years, with more, then
more harsh penalties. Has anything changed? Drug use is actually up.
So are the populations of our prisons. The Legislature regularly
complains about the costs of operating our penal system, then enacts
laws that put more of our citizens in the system for nonviolent
crimes. These are people who harm no one but themselves. Do you really
want another $40,000 per year of your tax money spent that way? Worse,
they may spend that money in another state.

You should be as outraged as I am. This problem is not caused by drug
use. This problem, as in the 1920s and '30s, is caused by prohibition.
The only people who benefit from this kind of law are criminals. The
laws increase the risk, the risk increases the profits, the protection
of profits increases the violence. According to John L. Kane Jr., U.S.
senior district judge of Denver, we incarcerate more of our citizens
than Russia or South Africa, until now the most repressive nations in
the world. Is this the company we should keep? Land of the free?

MARTY C. KEEF

Girdwood