PROTEST WAR BEGUN LONG AGO

The most unjust and self-destructive war being fought by America today is
not in the Middle East, it is fought right here in the U.S.A.. It is the
drug war. Although it has universal support among politicians, the drug war
is a senseless waste of time, resources, lives and money, creating more
problems than it fixes.

First of all, the drug war is a violation of human rights. I have this
crazy idea that each person has absolute ownership over their body and
life, and the right to decide what to do with them. The drug war breeds a
lack of respect for individual self-determination. It is the majority
imposing its standards on the rest of us. Your conception of the "good
life" may be hell to me, which is why each person must be able to seek his
own happiness, as long as he does not harm another person. My vision of a
free America, and I think Thomas Jefferson would agree with me, is one
where I can shoot up heroin while simultaneously smoking crack and eating
double chocolate marijuana brownies in the middle of the Benson food court.

In addition to the violations of rights, there is a high material cost to
the drug war: it causes increased crime. The government tells the truth
when it says that drug money funds terrorism, but the reason it does so is
because drugs are illegal. Prohibition means that the criminal element
instead of legal farmers controls the drug trade. The price of drugs is
raised dramatically, making it very profitable for those willing to break
the law. Like alcohol prohibition of the 1920s, drug prohibition has made
our streets into battlegrounds as criminal gangs and organized crime kill
other dealers and innocents caught in the crossfire. When America
re-legalized alcohol in the '20s, violent alcohol related crime went away.
The price of alcohol fell and criminal gangs could not compete with legal
producers. Similarly today, if we legalized drugs we would remove the
presence of terrorists, gangs and militant cartels from the drug trade. Our
cities would be safer and would not be a source of income for terrorist
organizations.

There is a huge social cost to the drug war. According to the Justice
Department, over 750,000 people are in jail for drug-related crimes, and 75
percent of these are non-violent offenders. America is the largest
incarcerator in the world. It costs $50,000 to build a prison cell and
$20,000 a year to keep a prisoner in one, according to statistics from
Social Problems by Eitzen and Baca-Zinn, 9th edition. When you add in
enforcement, investigation, and other efforts to stop drug use, the cost of
this drug war accounts for half of the money spent on law enforcement in
the United States. This money could better be used to rid American cities
of violent crimes such as rape, murder, and theft, crimes that actually
hurt other people.

In the year before Sept 11, our country arrested over 700,000 people for
marijuana use but only 60 for being suspected terrorists according to FBI
records. It seems like we have our priorities in the wrong place.

The Drug Policy Alliance maintains that the drug war affects minorities
disproportionately Although white people use three times more marijuana
than black people, five times more black people are arrested on marijuana
charges. While in jail, parents cannot work to provide for their families,
which causes their families to fall into poverty. After a drug offender
gets out of jail, they are not allowed to apply for student aid for
college, making a vicious cycle of poverty and welfare dependence.

When the government attempts to do what is best for us, it usually does the
opposite. The quixotic war on drugs is no exception. Drug education
programs like DARE are a joke. Instead of teaching children what they need
to know to make an informed and safe choice, millions of children know
nothing more about drugs than to "just say no." Millions of lives have been
ruined by the criminal justice system. People's health has been damaged by
getting tainted drugs from shady dealers instead of buying it from legal
safe sources on the open market. Money from drugs is funneled to terrorists
instead of legal farmers. Our inner cities are wracked with the crime
caused by prohibition. All around us we see the harmful effects of the drug
war. Acording to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about 40
million Americans are occasional users of some kind of illegal drug. Most
are responsible non-addicted individuals.

In these tough economic times, I can think of hundreds of better ways to
use the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the drug war, including
giving them back to the households and businesses that deserve them. The
drug war cannot be "won," everyone loses from this internecine war on our
own people.