PROHIBITION OF DRUGS IS SOURCE OF 'EASY MONEY'

To the editor:

Prohibition of "some" drugs is what creates the easy money Mr. Crist refers
to. He should do a little homework. You would think a newspaper publisher
would understand that putting substances of any kind into the black market
is a bad idea. The founding fathers of our great nation wrote a little
document called the Constitution. They understood that with freedom comes
responsibility. We don't need the government telling us what we can and
cannot put into our bodies. Even if they are bad, the Bill of Rights has
been completely undermined by the drug war. It's time men of courage and
character stand up and be honest. I'm hoping your paper will send the right
message to our children. Drugs are bad but the drug war is a catastrophe
and causes more harm than the drugs themselves.

James Barnes

Muscle Shoals, Ala.

U.S. WASTING MONEY, SOURCES ON DRUG WAR

To the editor:

Hi, I read your article regarding drugs and the black market. I just
thought I'd give you my opinion on the subject. The only way to halt the
black market is to legalize the product. Until that happens it's just going
to be a downward spiral that us Americans are going to spend our money
trying to stop, until we die seeing no change whatsoever. If we legalize
and offer help programs and other treatments it will reduce the black
market if not killing it completely. Remember, you may think that
marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs are horrible and should be
illegal, but there are millions of people who feel the opposite. Until
there is a compromise we will be spending billions of dollars a year to fix
an unfixable problem.

"Our jails are overcrowded with inmates who are imprisoned because of
drugs. Many were caught in the act of selling them, but even more committed
crimes while under their influence or to help pay for their habit. While
there are treatment programs at those facilities, the high level of repeat
offenders indicates that they are not working very successfully. Perhaps
more resources need to be devoted to preventing drug use before it occurs.
That is where programs like DARE and other educational efforts come into
play. Those are the types of programs we need more of, and must continue to
support."

I agree and disagree with this. It is true that our jails are filled with
drug offenders, but did you know that most of those offenders are there
simply for possession of narcotics? This is not harming anyone, yet these
people are being put in prison and into these programs. Most of the inmates
and patients don't feel they deserve to be there because they feel they
didn't do anything wrong, and did they? In most states a person can go
directly to jail just for having a personal supply of marijuana, is that
fair? marijuana, as all studies have shown is less harmful to people than
alcohol. Is smoking a joint by yourself in the privacy of your own home
something that should carry a minimum 1 year sentence? That is the case in
a lot of states today.

Did you know that in all the countries that have legalized the use of these
drugs that individual use has decreased since then, and drug related
violence has decreased. The treatment programs they offer aren't forced
programs like ours here, they are programs that users can go to get clean
needles, information, and medical help if needed. The other thing you
brought up was DARE, when I was going to school the DARE program told us
that smoking Marijuana can kill you, so obviously when I heard this was
false I wondered how many other things they told me were false and
therefore disregarded everything I had learned in DARE. If you want a
program like that to work you have to give the facts, you can't lie to kids
to try and scare them away from it.

If you really want to keep your kids off drugs you have to do it yourself,
you can't rely on the government or school programs. Kids don't look up to
their schools or their Government, they look up to the people they love and
trust the most. If you set and reinforce the morals they will abide by them
until they are old enough to find their own set of morals.

Thanks,

Patrick Haga