Pubdate: Fri, 17 Feb 2012
Source: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
Copyright: 2012 Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Contact: http://www.star-telegram.com/submit-a-letter/
Website: http://www.star-telegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/162
Author: Terry Nelson

REACTIONS TO TCU DRUG BUSTS

The TCU stories illustrate one thing I learned during my 30-year 
career as a federal agent: Cracking down on these young adults will 
have no lasting effect and will only drive them further underground 
and increase market share for those not caught up in this sting. You 
can't keep drugs off campus when you cannot even keep them out of our 
prisons. These arrests will make no difference in the insatiable 
demand for drugs on college campuses anywhere. It may instead cause 
the students to seek drugs from far more dangerous venues.

The only way to address this problem is to legalize and regulate the 
drug trade, which would eliminate the opportunity to make enormous 
black-market profits. It wasn't easy for me to come to this 
revelation after dedicating so many years to enforcing drug laws, but 
it is common sense. Law-enforcement officers don't have to chase 
gangsters selling booze from town to town because we ended the failed 
experiment of alcohol prohibition decades ago. It is time we do the 
same for other drugs.

- -- Terry Nelson, Granbury
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom