Pubdate: Fri, 17 Apr 2009
Source: DrugSense Weekly (DSW)
Website: http://www.drugsense.org

LETTER OF THE WEEK

PROHIBITION CREATES NEW PROBLEMS

By Amy Rogers

Re "It's time to seriously consider ending prohibition on drugs" 
(Viewpoints, April 5): Prohibition, whether of alcohol or the illegal 
drugs du jour, never works in the sense that it fails to eliminate 
the problem of drug abuse and addiction. What it does is create an 
entirely new set of problems and costs through supporting violent, 
organized crime, and the costs of incarceration and criminal 
justice.  Which is more costly to society: a small percentage of 
legal drug addicts (who will probably be on welfare, but that's 
cheaper than jail), or financing the Taliban and gangs at home, 
destabilizing Mexican society by corrupting police forces, funding 
the FARC leftist rebels in Colombia and so many drug-related murders, 
gbnot to mention billions upon billions of dollars on interdiction 
and incarceration? It's not a question of whether drug use is bad. 
It's a practical question of how best to deal with the existence of 
addictive substances in the natural world.

Amy Rogers

Sacramento

Pubdate: Wed, 8 Apr 2009

Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)

Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n388/a05.html 
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