STOP THE REEFER MADNESS, SENATOR HATCH! PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert #333 - Tuesday, 25 July 2006 Monday morning brought a breath of fresh air from the July 24 opinion page of the Washington Times. Terry Michael - the executive director of the Washington Center for Politics and Journalism - authored an "open letter to Senator Orrin Hatch (UT), calling for an end to the socially devastating War on Drugs. Senator Hatch received likely unwanted attention this past month when he extended his strong personal and political influence to facilitate the release of an American citizen facing drug charges in the country of Dubai. Among other reasons offered for his action, Hatch said he made the calls out of his long-standing angst with mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, which require judges to issue sentences without taking into account a person's past history or specific circumstances. See: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n918/a03.html Mr. Michael's appeal was that Senator Hatch and other federal policy makers who recognize one or more aspects of the failed drug war should give more careful review to the wide range of personal and social destruction wrought by a policy of drug Prohibition. Please consider writing a succinct Letter to the Editor and sending it to the Washington Times with your own personal appeal to federal lawmakers to call an end to The War on Drugs. Extra Credit: Based on their history, we believe it likely the Washington Times will provide space for a rebuttal commentary in the coming week for either Senator Hatch, Drug Czar John Walters or another leading federal policy maker who supports the policy of drug Prohibition. Please watch the MAP DrugNews feed http://www.drugnews.org and consider writing a separate LTE in response to this anticipated column. Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do it's what YOU do Contact: The Washington Times US DC: OPED: Legalize Drugs URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n967/a02.html Pubdate: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 Source: Washington Times (DC) Copyright: 2006 News World Communications, Inc. Contact: Website: http://www.washingtontimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492 Author: Terry Michael Note: Terry Michael runs a program to teach college journalism students about politics, and writes at his "libertarian Democrat" blog, www.terrymichael.net Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Orrin+Hatch Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction) LEGALIZE DRUGS An open letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch: stop reefer madness here, as well as in Dubai. Mr. Hatch, you have demonstrated willingness to act beyond ideology, when a practical approach makes more sense than "conservative" or "liberal" purity. You did so recently, for an American victim of draconian drug penalties of the United Arab Emirates. This is an appeal for your leadership to stop the equally devastating American "War on Drugs." Many officials admit behind closed doors that our drug policy needs radical revision. Few will say so publicly. This "third rail" of politics is exacerbated by the collusion of mainstream media, suspending usual rules of journalistic practice, publishing government propaganda without quoting critics of drug-war policy. Our policies result in tremendous harm creation, about which much has been written, but I'll summarize here: Denial of liberty. Our drug war constitutes an assault on individual liberty, privacy and choice, from both the left and right. Liberals fight for a woman's right to abortion and conservatives go to the ramparts to defend gun owners, but both agree to throw into prison an adult who smokes dried, leafy vegetation. With impunity, we can drink ourselves stupid and destroy our lungs with tobacco. But using a recreational substance as old as wine will get us jailed. Waste of treasury. When our resources should be directed at lawful attempts to keep dangerous politicized religious fanatics from entering our country, we spend tens of billions futilely trying to interdict chemicals, most of which, in moderation, are demonstrably no more harmful to the body than alcohol and tobacco. Government-created violent black market. Alcohol did not create Al Capone. Prohibition created Al Capone, with the mayhem, official corruption and murder that accompanied the 18th Amendment. And cocaine does not create drug cartels. America's War on Drugs creates drug cartels. Government violence against its own people. With guns blazing, law enforcement agencies not only deny life, liberty and property to those who work in the government stimulated black market; they rack up untold "collateral damage," maiming and killing innocent bystanders, in countless stings gone bad. Promoting disrespect for the rule of law. With millions of Americans scoffing at the China-like oppressiveness of the War on Drugs, our policies undermine respect for the rule of law and our democratic policy-making institutions. As the drug warriors clog our courts and fill our jails, we disrupt the lives of the poor and the powerless, who can't afford crafty lawyers and have no political connections. Health harm creation. Perhaps most important, our policy is creating untold health harm to millions, particularly the young. We educate them about the responsible use of two potentially very dangerous, but legal, substances, but we try our best to keep them ignorant of the real effects, and side effects, of other psychoactives. While hundreds of thousands die each year from the short- and long-term health damage of alcohol and tobacco, no one succumbs to marijuana, and remarkably few die from other illegal drugs. None of that argues for use of psychoactives of any kind, legal or currently illegal, particularly by young people with unformed intellectual and emotional lives. But it makes a powerful case for bringing other substances out of the shadows with decriminalization and legalization, and for spending some of those wasted billions on education, harm reduction, and, when needed, addiction treatment. The obsession of drug warriors with cutting off supplies of softer drugs has pushed thousands to try the bathtub gin of Neo-Prohibitionism, crystal methamphetamine. So, Mr. Hatch, I am hopeful your efforts to save an American being abused in Dubai will cause you to re examine the drug-war abuse millions of Americans face here everyday. I understand how difficult it will be to return to drug policy sanity. I had jury duty this summer and was sent out on a panel for a case of marijuana possession with intent to distribute. I wasn't chosen for the jury, but it made me realize how much the Drug War Industrial Complex has to lose if we change our laws. Probably a third of the jobs in that courthouse would disappear. Thousands of lawyers, prosecutors, DEA agents, and prison guards would have to find productive employment. Local law enforcement offices would lose much of their federal funding for high-tech toys. But America would be a less violent and healthier nation. Billions fewer tax dollars would be disbursed as welfare to the legal industries formed around the drug war. And official corruption, stimulated by the lucrative black market we have created with our policies, would diminish, not just in Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan, but right here in America. Senator, it will take courage to lead in the battle to stop this war on America and its founding principles. But you have shown the wisdom to change your mind before. Several decades ago, my Baby Boom generation laughed at "Reefer Madness." Then we made it public policy. It's time to stop the madness. Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides Or contact MAP Media Activism Facilitator Steve Heath for personal tips on how to write LTEs that get printed. You are welcome to join Steve and other LTE writing friends of MAP Tuesday evenings at 9 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Central, 7 p.m. Mountain, or 6 p.m. Pacific, for a roundtable discussion of how to write LTEs that get print and specifically how to best respond to our Focus Alerts. In addition, you can learn from Steve how you can participate in our newly-formed LTE Team. See: http://mapinc.org/resource/paltalk.htm for all details on how you can participate in this important meeting of leading minds in reform. Discussion is conducted with live Voice (microphone and speakers all that is needed) and also via text messaging. The Paltalk software is free and easy to download and install. The password for this gathering will be: welcome-pal (all lower case) PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list () if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list () will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Prepared by: Stephen Heath, MAP Media Activism Facilitator =.

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