WAR ON DRUGS TARGETS THE WRONG PEOPLE

Has This Country Become The Modern Equivalent Of Sparta?

If you remember your history lessons from school, I'm sure you will recall
that the main business for Sparta was to conduct war.

They were real good at it, and all the other Greek cities were scared to
death of them.

We have the war on terrorism, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Liberia. We
are thinking about one in North Korea, and maybe a few other places we
haven't been told about yet.

If that's not enough to chew on, we have the War on Drugs.

I have lived through a lot of wars, but only one of them was a declared war.
Has anyone noticed that with all the fighting going on, that the last war we
declared on anyone was World War II?

Does Congress take part in anything except to pass pork barrel legislation
and raise its pay, retirement and benefits?

I can't think of any way to get us out of all of the wars, but we should be
able to end at least one. The War on Drugs.

The last War on Drugs was prohibition, and I lived through a good part of
it.

I saw my father turn from a decent man into a drunk because of prohibition.

He was a police officer, and in those days you drank the good bottled in
bond whiskey that was saved by the police, or you didn't stay on the force.

The rotgut was poured down the sewer to show the newspaper people and
politicians. Then all of them -- cops, politicians and newspaper people --
took the good stuff home.

We used to have cases of Old Granddad and other bourbon stored in our
pantry.

My mother told me that my father never drank any whiskey until he became a
policeman. He started doing it to keep his job, and found a hobby that
lasted almost 30 years.

Prohibition corrupted a lot of public officials besides cops. The current
War of Drugs may be doing the same thing, but it's worse.

Not as many people were in jail during Prohibition. They weren't after the
drinkers.

Today's War on Drugs targets the user as much as the producer and is causing
a lot of people to end up as criminals for only being a sucker for the drug.

Jail doesn't help these people, but it does send them to a really good
school on how to become expert criminals.

About 30 years ago, I knew a judge who went to the same watering hole that I
frequented, and many times his friends had to pour him into his car. He
wouldn't let anyone drive him home.

One day, I was in his court when a college student was brought in for
possession of marijuana. He had his wife and baby with him. This was his
first possession charge.

The judge fined him $500 and verbally tore him up about his criminal life.

I kept my mouth shut because I knew I would end up in jail if I blew the
whistle on the old hypocrite, but I felt enraged and helpless.

We need to come down hard on anyone driving under the influence of any drug,
or endangering anyone with their actions, but I question the wisdom of
jailing someone for using a drug in their own home peacefully.

If they had done that during prohibition, half of this country would have
become criminals in prison.

At one time I was hooked on nicotine, and in the past I have used alcohol
more than I should have, but it seems to me we need to rethink our war on
drugs, and find some way to end this massive use of drugs without so many
young people becoming criminals.