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LEGALIZE METH?

Let's talk about drugs again this week. 

We're inspired to stay on this subject a third week for two reasons. 

No.  1, we heard from several of you who agreed with our stance that Laclede County needs to get a handle on illegal drugs, especially methamphetamine, which appears to have become the local drug of choice. 

This week we heard more firsthand accounts of drugs -- and, yes, misuse of alcohol, too -- ruining lives locally.  These are sad stories, stories that for many in our community hit close to home. 

But mostly we're inspired to write about drugs one more week because of the outpouring of e-mails from out-of-staters who have been critical of these editorials after reading them on the Internet. 

We heard from 36 more of them last week, in addition to the nine the previous week. 

We learned that these out-of-staters suddenly are so interested in the illegal drug industry in Laclede County because these editorials are being posted on a Web site called the Media Awareness Project ( www.mapinc.org ). 

"This organization has a nationwide group of volunteers who cut and paste newspaper articles from around the world and send them to Mapinc, which posts them on its server," we learned from someone in drug prevention who monitors the site.  "It also teaches supporters how to write effective letters to the editor and collects all those published, estimating how many column inches of 'free advertising' members' efforts have generated."

That's impressive.  The pro-drug lobby is a well-oiled public-relations machine.  ( And we can thank "Beth" and "Derek" for posting The Daily Record editorials on the site.  )

That's something else we learned.  These folks don't like to be called "pro-drug."

"Alright, let's get something straight you #$% damn *&%$#s.  I am not pro-drug.  I am anti-prohibition.  Get it?," wrote Charles Byrnes of Taylor Mill, Ky. 

These folks apparently don't want any drugs to be illegal, which somehow they rationalize is different from being "pro-drug."

"The best way to reduce the harm and heartbreak of illegal drugs is to end drug prohibition," wrote Alan Randell of Victoria, British Columbia.  "Let's legalize all drugs, remove the propaganda and the police from the equation and have the drugs manufactured by knowledgeable, competent organizations who will supply cheap, quality tested drugs of known purity and potency and who, in order to avoid legal liability, will impart factual drug information to us and our children."

If this wasn't such ludicrous logic, it would be funny.  Legalize methamphetamine? Yeah, let's make it even more available in Laclede County than it already is.  Let's ruin more Laclede County lives than meth already is ruining. 

Some of the e-mails were directed at your co-editor personally:

"You really do have your head somewhere, but I don't think it is in the sand," wrote Trevor Houlahan of Garson, Ontario. 

"Your simplemindedness is laughable," added Mike Smithson of Syracuse, N.Y. 

Referring to a drug bust mentioned in last week's editorial, Kim Hanna of Worcester, Mass., wrote:

"There'll be no shortage of drugs in Laclede County tonight except for those people busted.  Every other drug user has their drug of choice.  Customers of those busted found new suppliers from a friend of a friend of a friend.  People are high tonight in Laclede County.  Are you jealous?"

Why do we give these folks any mention at all in today's newspaper? Why are we paying any attention to people thousands of miles away who are trying to tell Laclede Countians that the only reason we have a drug problem is because we won't legalize drugs? ( We wouldn't have a burglary problem if we legalized burglary, too.  )

Because we're trying to make you as mad as we're becoming.  This is the attitude that our local legal system is up against, this ridiculous belief that methamphetamine and marijuana and whatever other crap happens to be floating around Laclede County at this moment wouldn't be a problem if we just legalized it. 

This didn't start out to be a crusade two weeks ago.  Thanks to Charles and Alan and Trevor and Mike and Kim and all of their Internet friends, we're inspired to fight harder, to give even more encouragement to Richard Wrinkle and Sam Mustard and Jon Morris and everyone else who is working to rid Laclede County of the methamphetamine menace. 

We want you -- at least those of you who also want to rid Laclede County of drugs -- to become just as inspired, which is why we're posting all 36 e-mails on The Daily Record's Web site.  Go to www.lebanondailyrecord.com, click on "opinion," and you'll see, unedited and uncensored, what the pro-drug lobby -- we like that term even more now -- thinks about the war on drugs in Laclede County. 

It's a war we never will win completely, but that's no reason not to fight it. 

- --Gary Sosniecki