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'WAR ON DRUGS' IS GOVERNMENT WELFARE

During the Vietnam War, our generals told us with a straight face that they had to "destroy the village to save the village" to justify the American governments burning to the ground of villages that had a few communist supporters in them.

I suspect the real reason was to justify the Vietnam War, which was really a government welfare program for the folks in the military industrial complex.  In her last editorial on the War on Drugs, Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk seems to have the same myopic, self centered view of we have to "put the children in prison to save them from drugs".

Polk wants to turn what seems like a health problem of children and adults abusing marijuana, into a criminal justice problem where the police lock them up in prison for the victimless crime of using or selling marijuana.

I suspect Polk could care less about the "children" and just wants to continue the "war on drugs," which is also a government welfare program for police officers, prosecutors, probation officers, judges, prison guards and other people who make their money by putting people in prison.

Mike Ross

Tempe