Pubdate: Thu, 25 Jan 2001
Source: Eugene Weekly (OR)
Copyright: 2001 Eugene Weekly
Contact:  1251 Lincoln, Eugene OR  97401
Website: http://www.eugeneweekly.com/
Author: Mike Meyer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/traffic.htm (Traffic)

REAL-LIFE TRAFFIC

The new movie Traffic is excellent, but we don't need fictional depictions
of the drug war. We continue to create hypocrisy, misery, and pain
exponentially as drugs expose policy makers' complete inability to make
mature, rational decisions in real-life stories.

Consider the spectacle of tough-on-crime commentator Michael Reagan making
excuses for his son's drug use, explaining his grandfather Ronald Reagan's
Alzheimer's Disease has been hard on him. Meanwhile, zero-tolerance George
W. Bush executes people for crimes committed while perpetrators are often
high on drugs (if they're guilty at all), yet won't disclose his own
history of use including driving while intoxicated.

Phillip Morris gives us warm, fuzzy commercials about the good work they do
with their drug money and the media ignores the hypocrisy. Hemp is
demonized and made illegal to grow as dubiously connected to a drug less
harmful than many of the legal ones. Someone murders their child and on the
same day of sentencing gets decades less time than another with small
amounts of marijuana possession. Drug treatment, prevention, and school
counselors are inadequately funded or eliminated, though proven to be
cost-effective and more successful than punitive measures.

And now the Eugene 4J School District has given their blessing to
caffeine-rich product expansion to help teach the lesson of addiction,
greed, instant gratification, and inattention to health of children.

I look forward to Traffic II with an adventurous story of deceit, lies,
immorality, ignorance, and conspiracy. It'll be more intense, preposterous,
and multi-faceted than Traffic I. It'll be a true story.

Mike Meyer, KRVM-FM Eugene
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager