Pubdate: Thu, 10 Apr 2014
Source: Daily Courier (Prescott, AZ)
Copyright: 2014 Parker Anderson
Contact: http://www.dcourier.com/Formlayout.asp?formcall=userform&form=1
Website: http://www.dcourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4036
Author: Parker Anderson

IT'S TIME TO END THE WAR ON DRUGS

EDITOR:

With all of the recent hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth over the
prospect of legalizing marijuana, I have a few questions.

Simply put, are we winning the War on Drugs? Has the current illegal
status of pot and other dangerous drugs kept anyone who wanted to try
them from doing so? Has the War on Drugs put a dent, even the
slightest dent, in America's insatiable appetite for hard narcotics,
particularly marijuana?

If you can honestly answer yes to any of those questions, then I can
understand why you oppose the legalization of weed. I felt the same
way for many years. But today, I think we are not only losing the War
on Drugs, we've already lost it.

We spend billions - yes, billions! - of tax dollars every year busting
rinky-dink potheads and pill poppers. Has it really had any effect? I
find it amazing that the rabid anti-tax zealots feel this is one good
way - perhaps the only one - to spend taxes. I'm not sure I understand
that.

Any military strategist can tell you that if you are losing a war, you
need to find a new strategy to fight it. Not so with the War on Drugs,
where alarmists are telling us day after day that we must stay the
course no matter what. But we have some of the harshest drug laws in
the world, and also have some of the highest usage and demand for
drugs in the world, and the most prison overcrowding in the world,
largely due to our very high number of drug-related
incarcerations.

If legalization isn't the answer, what is? Are there any other options
besides "staying the course"? If so, let's talk about them. If not,
let's do something. In a world where the word "unsustainable" is
overused, the War on Drugs as it currently is being fought is indeed
unsustainable.

Parker Anderson

Prescott
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D