BRITISH ARE RIGHT: IT'S TIME TO END THE WAR ON DRUGS

Kudos to John Nichols for the excellent column on July 9 regarding the war
on drugs, comparing and contrasting the situation in the US and Britain.

As a Wisconsin Green Party candidate for the 43rd Assembly District, I am
one of the minority of candidates who unequivocally call for an end to the
destructive and expensive war on drugs. With a prison budget of a billion
dollars a year, and over 25% of prisoners being non-violent drug offenders,
at what point will the taxpayers take umbrage and no longer vote for the
Republicans and overwhelming majority of Democrats who continue to
perpetuate this idiocy? When medical marijuana is a stretch for these
so-called "compassionate" legislators, what can be said?

Our nation leads the world in per capita incarceration. The effect on the
social fabric in poor communities is devastating. While rapists, murderers,
child molesters, scam artists, etc. go about their evil deeds, law
enforcement pursues the war on drugs. When will the CIA, which brought
cocaine into the country by the military planeload, be prosecuted? When
will the corporate prison industry be shackled? Our streets are less safe,
not safer, due to the "war on drugs".

Just as alcohol prohibition bred organized crime, the current drug war
feeds the criminals and leads addicts to rob to pay for their habits. It's
long overdue that marijuana be legalized in a manner similar to alcohol
(hence taxed), and that hard drugs be treated as a medical rather than law
enforcement problem. Only then will addicts have a chance for treatment to
turn their fractured lives around.

Given the bipartisan "Rave Act" which just came out of committee in the US
Senate, informed citizens must conclude that both major parties are
bankrupt on this issue, despite a small minority (of generally Democrats)
to the contrary.

If George Washington were growing hemp at Mount Vernon today, he would be
carted away by the Drug Enforcement Administration. It certainly makes one
wonder about the state of freedom in this "land of the free".

Bernard Dalsey

Whitewater