ENOUGH ALREADY

The real reason certain drugs are illegal is not because some are more
harmful than others. If that were true, then alcohol and tobacco would be
illegal. Alcohol kills more people in a year than all illicit drugs
combined kill in a decade. And tobacco kills four times as many as alcohol.

No, the real reason is that during the Great Depression, a time when many
Americans feared losing their jobs, our ancestors passed laws making
illegal those drugs used by recent immigrants, foreigners with strange
habits and customs. Alcohol prohibition was aimed at the mostly Catholic
Irish, German and Italian immigrants. Marijuana and cocaine prohibition was
aimed at Mexican and Latin Americans. Opium prohibition was aimed at the
Chinese.

Alcohol prohibition ended because our white European ancestors could see it
was a disaster. So the drug of choice of European immigrants was made legal
and prohibition continued for the drugs of choice for all other races and
ethnic groups.

In the 1970s, heroin and marijuana use spread to Americans fighting in
Vietnam. As these soldiers came home, so did their new drug choices. As
marijuana use spread to the "counter culture," those opposed to Nixon and
his policies, Nixon and his advisors saw that by declaring a "war on drugs"
he could not only ride to electoral victory on the tried and true "tough on
crime" issue but could also use the new "drug war" laws as a tool to arrest
and harass those who opposed his policies.

Every president since has continued this same "war on drugs" lest they be
accused of being "soft on crime" There is another solution. One that will
not only save taxpayers' money, but that will also reduce the violence
while encouraging addicts to get treatment. I'm advocating the same
approach that we used for the first 150 years in this country. That
approach is to treat all drugs the same.

Ask yourself, if you could walk into any drug store and buy any drug you
wanted, how much more heroin, cocaine, alcohol or tobacco would you buy
today than yesterday? What makes you think your neighbor is any different
than yourself? Meanwhile, after 30 years of this "drug war," drug use is as
prevalent as ever, drugs are as cheap as ever, violent crime is rampant
and, instead of building colleges, we build prisons. Isn't it time we said
enough?

Alvin Anders, Juneau