UN-AMERICAN SHAME

I applaud Judge John Kane, quoted in Diane Carman's column, for his honesty
concerning this dark chapter in American history and our ill- fated
experiment with drug prohibition. Unfortunately, all Americans suffer the
consequences of the mistakes of a very few, and the war on drugs is
probably the clearest example of this type of policy. There's little
question that American drug laws are not so much an attempt to control
illegal drugs as they are a way to support two thriving industries, forever.

On one side, the moral entrepreneurs preach abstinence and promote laws
that wreck the lives of countless Americans while using the courts and
these same dictates to destroy every vestige of our legacy as a free and
free-thinking people. They want to know what goes on in your home, where
and how you spend your money, and what you do with your body and your time.
In the form of drug testing, they now attempt to see inside your body, for
God's sake. What could be more un- American?

I have little doubt that, were America's founders alive today, they would
cringe at what we've let their wonderful idea become. King George would
blush at the tactics we allow our government employees to use in pursuit of
those who consume illegal drugs.

On the other side of the drug war are those who provide illegal drugs, an
industry of massive proportions that attempts to satisfy the world's lust
for the products it produces. The United Nations estimates the worldwide
trade in illicit drugs amounts to over $500 billion per year, or as much as
10 percent of the global economy. Law enforcement acknowledges that it only
intercepts a minute fraction of illegal drugs that are sold around the
globe, but we continue the fight undeterred.

Although there are other ways of controlling these substances, Americans
are rarely allowed to hear the ideas that true drug-policy professionals
propose. Instead, we must let generals, bureaucrats, political appointees
and legislators - who, more often than not, know very little about the
substances they attempt to control - direct the war on drugs. If that's not
enough, the vast majority of "educators" we pay to teach our people about
these drugs probably know less than that. That basically defines U.S. drug
policy: the blind leading the blind.

Fresh ideas have no place within our current system. Why? Money, and lots
of it, on both sides of the issue - for those who fight drugs and for those
who supply these illegal substances. The taxpayer's wallet is caught dead
in the middle.

MIKE PLYLAR

Kremmling