WHO IS PROFITING FROM THE 'DRUG WAR'?

To M.L. Simon:

Sadly I know (as you do) the answer to your question, and it is rational
only to those who profit by perpetuating prohibition. I have written the
politicians and received the same prohibitionist party-line propaganda
responses from all of them except a few, like Gary Johnson.

Truth to tell, the drug warrior politicians, officials, media and civilians
secretly don't list victory as an objective in their expensive and
oppressive trillion dollar war. When they do spout their "zero
tolerance/total victory" rhetoric, how many of your readers actually
believe them? How many actually believe that this year's
multi-billion-dollar drug war budget will be the one that will achieve
total victory after decades of billion-dollar budgets have totally failed?

Just remember that the drug czars' and warriors' jobs depend on the
perpetual prosecution of, but NEVER a victory in, the drug war. Also,
remember that the politicians depend on the drug war and its rhetoric to
scare up votes (by scaring voters). The politicians also rely on the drug
war to sustain their constituent industries that depend on the economics of
prohibition in order to make generous profits and campaign contributions
that keep the drug warrior politicians in power and, therefore, keep
themselves in business.

Remember what H. L. Menken said: "The whole aim of practical politics is to
keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by
menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Maybe the corrupt politicians and media are required to adhere to the party
line of prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison and
military industrial complex, the drug testing industry, the "drug
treatment" industry, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the politicians
themselves et. al., can't live without the budget justification, not to
mention the invisible profits, bribery, corruption and forfeiture benefits
that prohibition affords them. The drug war also promotes, justifies, and
perpetuates racist enforcement policies and is diminishing many freedoms
that are supposed to be inalienable according to the Constitution and the
Bill of Rights.

Myron Von Hollingsworth

Fort Worth, Texas