Pubdate: Fri, 05 Mar 2004 Source: Wall Street Journal (US) Copyright: 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Contact: http://www.wsj.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487 Author: Alan M. Perlman Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n339/a05.html DRUG PROHIBITION'S AWFUL CONSEQUENCES Your prohibitionist Feb. 27 editorial "TV, the Anti-Drug" contradicts the point you're making: It has been education via TV and not prohibition that reduced drug use. You also say "proponents of legalization like to claim that drug use is an intractable problem, so we might as well learn to live with it." This is straw-man reasoning -- no rational proponent of legalization maintains such a thing. On the contrary, we have a host of alternatives to reduce harm, protect children, treat abuse and foster personal responsibility. Such alternatives are so much better than prohibition's awful consequences -- diversion of law-enforcement resources from terrorism and other violent crimes; overcrowding of courts and prisons (with violent criminals released to make room for drug offenders); corruption of law enforcement officers and agencies; criminalization of consensual behavior, and personal responsibility; and a frightening escalation of crime and violence. There is also the trampling of constitutional rights via such insults to liberty as asset forfeiture (seizing property on mere suspicion of a crime); threats to free speech (such as the government's threat to arrest any doctor who even mentioned medical marijuana to a patient); and gross violations of privacy, including the very kind of "unwarranted search and seizure" tactics (e.g., breaking down doors and entering violently without warning or evidence of a crime) that drove our Founders to revolution. Alan M. Perlman Highland Park, Ill. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake