WAR ON DRUGS DOES MORE HARM THAN DRUGS THEMSELVES

Our country seemingly remains hellbent on wasting billions of dollars year
after year on the longest war in U.S. history.

Current drug policy has created vicious and ever expanding criminal networks
that corrupt society, including police forces, and cause far worse damage
and destruction than the substances being regulated. It is the war against
drugs, not the drugs themselves, which has turned drug dealing into an
enormous profit making machine, resulting in gangs and cartels killing each
other and innocent members of their communities in the pursuit of the
dollar.

Drugs have always been associated with human populations and are here to
stay, if only because the biological impulse to get high rivals the
biological impulse for food, water and sex.

Drug use must be distinguished from drug abuse. Drug abusers are those in
bad relationships with drugs, whether legal or illegal. We can teach people
how to satisfy their needs and desires without recourse to drugs. We can
also teach people how to form good relationships with drugs so that if they
choose to use drugs, they remain users and not abusers.

As described in my recently published book, "Deep Spirit & Great Heart:
Living In Marijuana Consciousness," responsible, respectful and disciplined
use of marijuana affords one the insight that it is a plant teacher
possessing potential enormous beneficial and healing qualities, that heaven
is not a place but a state of consciousness in which a joyous daily
existence, awareness of eternal truths, sexual ecstasy, heightening of
ecological awareness, and spiritual enlightenment can become a life reality.

America needs to adopt a drug policy that heals not harms our country and
its people. We must learn from our past mistakes. We can do better than
destroying the village in order to save it.

Louis Silverstein

Kihei