WAR ON ILLEGAL DRUGS USELESS BATTLE

Legalization would protect youth, lessen crime, ease U.S. regulation.

Schwartz abhors what you have to say but will fight for your right to say it.

Heroin, cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, speed, LSD and crack invade the
lives of our parents, teachers, officials, children and even clergy.

I'm not preaching a la Nancy Reagan about the terrible societal
dangers of drugs, but am merely pointing out a fact. Most likely, at
least one person you know and respect has done an illegal drug, and
the harm that we cause to society by fighting a losing and idiotic
drug war far exceeds the damage that would persist if we legalized
drugs.

It is therefore quite ironic that those items that are chaotically
being distributed throughout the United States are officially labeled
"controlled substances" by our government.

The economic argument in favor of legalization is simple.

If there is high demand for a product, and if the supply is not being
provided by legal means, people will create alternate methods to
acquire what they want, and prices will skyrocket.

The result of our socialistic drug policy is the creation of a black
market that can manufacture drugs for a small price and sell at any
profit they want. This is the way that evil people like Osama bin
Laden and the Taliban gain wealth and power.

The prohibition movement of the 1920s literally created bootlegging.
It is a shame that the U.S. government failed to learn that Al Capone
could not have built his empire of horror without prohibition to fund
his activities.

But the massive drug cartels of today (spawned from the Drug War)
could not operate without an ample supply of workers.

Unfortunately, the only people willing to do illegal and potentially
dangerous work are those in horrid circumstances. They are those who
have failed to gain life skills due to terrible schooling, those
without role models and who are stuck in the neverending cycle of
welfare.

They are the young adults of our inner cities. Is it any surprise
that the easy wealth that has been made possible by our drug laws rid
these poor people of any incentive to better their socioeconomic
circumstance? And of course such a dangerous game fosters a need for
protection and grouping.

And so we can blame today's gang problem on drug war stupidity as well.

Yet there is one more group that is affected by drug war idiocy, and
this is the most tragic of them all. As long as the drug trade is
confined to the bowels of the black market, there can be no type of
legal or market control. As a result, the producers target the most
malleable members of society to be customers and distributors: our
children.

How many can honestly say that it was easier to obtain a beer at a
bar than a marijuana cigarette while they were in high school?

Bars and convenience stores are subject to specific market controls,
namely they can lose their license to sell tobacco or alcohol and
therefore a substantial amount of income by selling to minors.

In addition, the good citizens of any township would likely take
their business elsewhere if it were to be discovered that their
favorite quick stop was engaged in these shady activities. Although
it does happen, the fact that tobacco and alcohol are legal drugs
assures that children are not targeted customers.

Granted, legalizing drugs might lead to more addiction and drug
related deaths and violence.

However, countries such as Holland and Portugal have actually lowered
levels of drug abuse after legalization. And by fighting this losing
war, gangs and drug related crimes more than make up for the loss of
life that would be associated with legalization.

Besides these supposedly obvious economic factors, there also exists
a moral argument. Mark Twain summed it up the best: "Whose property
is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it,
who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously,
does the State die?" Twain is taking the doctrine of abortion rights
to its logical conclusion. If we are to give people full domain over
their own bodies, as is the case with abortion, then we should also
allow a person decide what to do with their own body. The brand of
socialist thinking that allows Big Brother to dictate what we can put
into our own bodies is the same thinking that leads to complete
control over the individual. The next step is to disallow "immoral"
sexual activity, "immoral" buying and selling of products arbitrarily
chosen, and ultimately "immoral" thought and speech.

The hatred of personal sovereignty as evidenced by conservatives who
perpetuate drug war misery, as well as self-pronounced liberals who
show signs of fascism by attacking the tobacco industry, must be
curtailed if we are to continue living in a free society.

Our lives and ultimately our freedom are the only real targets and
casualties of this disgusting Drug War.