Pubdate: Thu, 27 Dec 2001
Source: Dispatch, The (NC)
Copyright: 2001, The Lexington Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.the-dispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1583
Author: Redford Givens

PROHIBITION WON'T WORK

Editor:
It's time for America to wake up to the fact that the criminal activities 
among law enforcement officers in Davidson County is only the tip of the 
iceberg of corruption caused by drug prohibition every year. In the past 
five years, the number of police officers charged with serious crimes has 
risen over 700 percent and in almost every instance drug war corruption is 
involved.

During alcohol prohibition Al Capone boasted, "Half the cops in Chicago are 
on my payroll." Nowadays, cops do not wait for bribes. Law enforcement 
officers rob drug dealers of their cash, form partnerships with drug gangs 
or go into the drug business distributing cocaine, marijuana and Ecstasy at 
an alarming rate.

Our lunatic drug crusade is a bigger failure than alcohol prohibition was 
in the 1920s and '30s. And for exactly the same reasons.

It's worth remembering that Eliot Ness and the revenuers never put the 
booze barons out of business. Repeal and a regulated market for adult 
alcohol use did that. Regulation works for alcohol and regulation will work 
for drugs. Prohibition, on the other hand, has never worked for anything, 
anywhere, anytime.

Redford Givens

San Francisco, Calif.
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MAP posted-by: Beth