Pubdate: Tue, 24 Mar 2009
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 2009 PG Publishing Co., Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/pm4R4dI4
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
Author: Tony Norman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

STOP THE DRUG WAR NOW, MORE THAN EVER

I want drug kingpins and their low-level stooges to  have a really 
bad day. I want every wannabe "Scarface"  currently slinging dime 
bags in a school cafeteria to  suddenly discover that the underground 
economy isn't  working for them anymore.

With apologies to the late reggae singer Peter Tosh, I  don't want to 
"advertise it" or "criticize it," but I  do want to legalize it. And 
not just marijuana -- it's  time for Americans to have a grown-up 
conversation  about the so-called "war on drugs" while we still have 
some semblance of a Constitution.

Imagine the panic of shady bankers who'll be forced to  find other 
clients with illicit fortunes to launder  once mid-level dealers are 
wiped out by legitimate  businesses jockeying for a piece of the action.

What would they do if Uncle Sam decided it was now in  the country's 
best interests to drain the fetid swamp  of the underground economy 
by legalizing and then  slapping a sin tax on narcotics, like we do 
every other  legal drug from alcohol to cigarettes?

The day we grow up and treat drug addiction like a  public health 
crisis -- instead of an opportunity to  criminalize people and 
behavior we find distasteful --  will be the day our democracy takes 
a major step  forward into political maturity.

Politicians from all regions of the country who push  prison 
construction as a de facto jobs program would be  reduced to tears 
once we've finally adopted sensible  drug laws. We won't need as many 
prison guards once we  stop warehousing nonviolent drug offenders in 
federally  subsidized tombs for decades at a time.

Fortunes based on illicit drug profits would slip from  the hands of 
cartel bosses faster than what happened to  naive investors visiting 
Bernie Madoff's office.

Joaquin Guzman will be the last Mexican drug lord to  crack Forbes' 
list of billionaires if we have the  courage to walk away from a 
ridiculous drug war that  enriches criminals at the expense of society.

Yesterday while writing this very column, a letter from  the Drug 
Policy Alliance arrived in the mail. It  contained a fundraising 
appeal from a longtime  supporter: former CBS Evening News anchor 
Walter  Cronkite. "Uncle Walter," as he was affectionately  known by 
all who watched him in the pre-Internet,  pre-cable news age, was 
consistently voted the most  trusted man in America during his 
tenure. This is an  excerpt from his letter (which was first released 
in  2006):

As anchorman of the CBS Evening News, I signed off my  nightly 
broadcasts for nearly two decades with a simple  statement: "And 
that's the way it is." To me, that  encapsulates the newsman's 
highest ideal: to report the  facts as he sees them, without regard 
for the consequences or controversy that may ensue.

Sadly, that is not an ethic to which all politicians  aspire -- least 
of all in a time of war. I remember. I  covered the Vietnam War. I 
remember the lies that were  told, the lives that were lost -- and 
the shock when,  20 years after the war ended, former Defense 
Secretary Robert S. McNamara admitted he knew it was a mistake  all along.

Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and  one at home. 
While the war in Iraq is in the headlines,  the other war is still 
being fought on our own streets.  Its casualties are the wasted lives 
of our own  citizens. I am speaking of the War on Drugs.

Folks of a certain age will recall that it was Walter  Cronkite who 
declared the Vietnam War unwinnable after  reporting the Tet 
Offensive. That was bad news for  President Lyndon Johnson. "If I've 
lost Cronkite," Mr.  Johnson said, "I've lost Middle America."

No journalist working in the business today has  anything near the 
moral authority Mr. Cronkite wielded  at the height of his 
popularity. Still, you don't have  to be the most revered newsman of 
your generation to  see the hysteria and disregard for the truth that 
the war on drugs engenders.

This war turns otherwise well-meaning people into liars  and fuels a 
black market that thrives on fear,  bloodshed and international 
bribery. The drug war is  cut from the same cloth as Prohibition. The 
same  anti-science mentality that fueled that moral panic  provides 
the discredited logic of America's drug war.

Every day, we see the distorting effects of our  shortsighted drug 
laws. Our prisons are bulging with  people who turned to the 
underground economy to satisfy  the demand curve and make a fast 
buck. More than 2  million people -- the largest incarcerated 
population  on the planet -- live behind American prison walls 
at  taxpayer expense.

A healthy percentage of those consigned to our jails  and prisons are 
nonviolent drug offenders. Don't bother  getting mad about AIG 
bonuses if you can't muster  indignation at this waste of lives and 
tax dollars. And  that's the way it is, America.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom