WAR ON DRUGS INEFFECTIVE

Dear Editor,

While flipping through channels the other night I came across an
interesting commercial. One of those god-awful, twisted, government-funded
late night commercials, mind you, but given the choice between a government
commercial or I love Lucy reruns, I was forced to choose the former. The
commercial inadequately presented the case for and reasons why using drugs
inadvertently links one to terrorists. While the war on terror has evolved
into one of the most patriotic, dignified events in our prestigious
history, the war on drugs has been an absolute joke. Not even one of those
crude jokes, like standing naked upside down in front of your friends after
a couple bottles of beer, but more like finding yourself in bed with your
overweight math teacher after a bottle of whiskey.

Hence it would seem that not much has changed since our initial "war on
drugs" launched in the 1970s. Even though the U.S. government's aggressive
efforts to crack down on illegal drug use evolved in recent years to
encompass everything from television programming to foreign policy, the
overindulging dictators in the Drug Enforcement Agency have incoherently
suffocated our freedoms by staunchly backing an overtly intrusive policy
against American citizens. Auspicious intrusions into personal freedoms, by
an overindulging mass media, has become per se. The mass media uses
propaganda and fear factors to indulge us with their rhetoric. Never has
anyone on the Constitutionalist side ever argued that the founders of our
great nation would have voted for such interference into a personal choice,
or liberty. Furthermore, it seems that the prestige of the war on terror
has unfairly been targeted by Czars to encompass propaganda against such
benefits as medical marijuana use.

Don't get me wrong I'm in no way advocating drug use. Drug use may lead
some to uncharted waters with no means of return. I'm merely questioning
the logic of the drug war and the linkage it has with our war against
terrorism.

As a true conservative, I believe that it's the responsibility of the
individual to have the freedom to pursue his or her own interests as long
as it's not hurting anyone else. Citizens should have control over their
liberty, and the government should allow for personal freedom above order
in "certain cases" where it is deemed necessary.

As far as the federal government is concerned, I'd much rather not speak
for it. But I'm positive that our great founders would have certainly
denounced such utter interference by an overtly powerful federal government
into private matters of personal interest and such disgraceful propaganda
of mixing two totally unrelated wars.

Let's just hope our war against terror will be more effective than our
lamed war on drugs.

Slater Bakhtavar

Senior, Political Science