Pubdate: Wed, 09 Feb 2011 Source: Post and Courier, The (Charleston, SC) Copyright: 2011 Frank S. Hay Jr. Contact: http://www.charleston.net/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/567 Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n074/a07.html Author: Frank S. Hay Jr. STANDING UP AGAINST INJUSTICE You brand Thomas Ravenel as 'playing the victim.' Then you add to his victimization by denigrating him as a drug law reformer. Yes, he is a victim of both your editorial and the drug laws. When he broke the existing law, he knew he was running the risk of paying the consequences however unjust. So did anti-abolitionists when liquor drinking was illegal. So did freedom fighters when racial discrimination was legal. So do prostitutes who have no other way to make a living. I do not understand the logic that leads our populace to think it is any of their business whether I drink liquor, use marijuana or cocaine, or patronize a prostitute, provided the prostitute is not under coercion. I think, like Ravenel, that such laws are a violation of our civil rights. This country saw the error of its ways with regard to liquor. Why not the others? Is it because many of us still want to control others with regard to behavior which we think is immoral? How do we justify making criminals of people merely for possessing marijuana? Surely decriminalizing the possession and use of drugs, as with alcohol, would result in thousands fewer people in jail for behavior which was harming no one. It would also enable the government to license and control the sale of these products, thus eliminating the profitability for the underworld drug lords. Let's get on with it. Frank S. Hay Jr. Franke Drive Mount Pleasant - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake