DON'T FOLLOW US -- WE'RE LOST

To the Editors of the Chiangmai Mail:

Thanks for publishing Eric Knudsen's outstanding letter: "What's The
Drug War About" (Sat, Aug. 14th).

I'd like to add that the United States government is in no position to
give any other nation advice on how to run an anti-drugs campaign. No
other nation has wasted more resources in fighting drugs and no other
nation has imprisoned more of its citizens for drug law violations
than the U. S., yet no other nation has been less successful in
solving its drug problem than the United States.

The American led war on drugs has been doomed from the very beginning.
Regardless of the money put into the anti-drugs program, one cannot
nullify the basic economic law of supply and demand. As long as people
want to purchase recreational drugs and they are willing to pay a
substantial price to purchase them, somebody will produce the drugs
and somebody else will get the drugs to the willing buyers. This is
guaranteed.

The war on drugs has transformed the United States into the most
incarcerated nation in history. With less than five percent of the
world's population, the U. S. has more than one fourth of the world's
prisoners. In other words, one out of every four prisoners in the
world is locked in an American jail or prison, thanks primarily to
America's counter-productive war on certain (politically selected)
drugs.

My advice to Thailand and the rest of the world: Carefully observe U.
S. drug policy and then do the opposite.

Don't follow us-we're lost.

Best regards

Kirk Muse

Mesa, AZ U. S. A.