A MORE COSTLY WAR

Editor of the Reformer:

Most Vermonters have always opposed the Bush regime's illegal Iraq
war, seeing through the false rationales for it, and understanding
that it is ultimately a power-grab for control of Middle Eastern
petroleum -- supposedly the most valuable military-strategic prize in
the history of the world.

However, we in our state, and we in our country, are still not taking
a close enough look at another fantastically expensive war -- more
costly in the number of human lives affected than the Iraq boondoggle.

This, of course, is the never-ending drug war, the so-called "war on
drugs" that began with the outlawing of marijuana in the early part
of the 20th century, and increased greatly with the inception of the
Rockefeller drug laws in New York state, the crack cocaine scare of
the early 1980s, federal "mandatory minimum" sentences, and "three
strikes, you're out" laws.

At the drugsense.org Web site, one can view a clock, which estimates
the ongoing and increasing cost of these terrible laws to the
American people. The cost in dollars is staggering -- the feds will
spend about $20 billion on enforcement this year, and the states even
more ... nearly $30 billion. Here in Vermont, we have a
brand-spanking-new prison right up the road in Springfield, and they
are talking about building yet another one, as the prison population
mushrooms so much that we are paying through the nose to house
prisoners out of state, far from their loved ones.

And all this for a problem that is essentially not a crime problem,
but a public health challenge ... because that's what addiction
essentially is ... a medical problem.

Do you like paying for helicopter flights so that local police can
spot backyard plots of marijuana, and peoples' lives can be ruined by
these unjust laws? Where is the common sense in this? In the early
years of our Republic, hemp (cannabis) -- one of the most versatile
crops that can be grown -- was not only a legal crop, it was
officially sanctioned -- the government encouraged people to grow it.
Today, it is re-emerging into our domestic agricultural scene,
generating many millions of dollars in commerce and forcing the
public to think once again about why so many laws exist that have no
logical or rational reason for being.

I personally have nothing to do with intoxicants, legal or illegal,
but a handful of my friends still indulge. One of them was arrested
right here in Brattleboro for marijuana possession recently,
apparently "fingered" by a neighbor with whom they were having a bit
of a disagreement. Nice and easy, isn't it, to turn in your
neighbors, even your family members, and have the state help you win
a nice little battle in your latest tiff? And all at the cost of the taxpayer.

I wish to plead with you, the public everywhere, to stay away from
intoxicants, especially including alcohol and tobacco, which generate
far more medical and accidental harm than the illegal ones. As long
as people will drink or get high and get behind the wheel of a car,
there is a reason for some laws against the use of substances -- I
myself was disabled from a career as a performing musician in 1978 by
a drunk driver. "Being all you can be" means not destroying your
brain cells with substances.

However, my dear friends and neighbors, it is long past time to
legalize and regulate the use of other controlled substances.
Marijuana (cannabis) does very little harm, and has real medical
uses. Our society is consuming itself and its economic output with a
futile drug war that will have no end, but which like the Iraq fiasco
also creates huge vested interests -- people who profit from it. We
don't need all the "private contractor" companies (who now outnumber
our troops in Iraq) to do our government's work, and we don't need
the huge criminal injustice, prison-industrial complex to imprison,
stigmatize, and even enslave huge segments of our population at home.

End the drug war now.

John Wilmerding

Brattleboro, Sept. 7