Pubdate: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 Source: Boston Globe (MA) Copyright: 2009 Globe Newspaper Company Contact: http://bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340 Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52 Author: Paul Wesel THE THORNIEST MINE IN THE DRUG WAR The Globe's April 2 editorial "The war to the south" proposes that the United States provide stronger support to Mexico in our shared so-called war against drugs. Suggestions include greater use of available technologies, a "plethora of tools" available to the federal government, stricter gun controls, and decreasing the demand for drugs through "better education and drug treatment." But as long as drug use is a criminal activity, education and treatment will have little effect. Unmentioned is the only reasonable, if untidy, resolution: decriminalization of drugs. As long as we treat drug users as criminals, the problem will only persist, ruining lives, corrupting our courts and prisons, turning ordinary citizens into felons, and providing a vast source of wealth to society's most brutal criminals. We need to stop viewing drug use as a legal problem and view it for what it really is: a public health problem. We have learned through bitter experience that prohibition does not work. When alcohol was prohibited, alcoholism was still rampant, organized crime flourished, and its infrastructure, although diminished, still exists. Today, drug cartels have the power to corrupt and control entire governments. As long as there is a demand for drugs, drug crimes will remain our largest law-enforcement problem, one with consequences that touch every American and Mexican citizen. Paul Wesel Jamaica Plain - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin