Pubdate: Wed, 24 Jun 2015
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Copyright: 2015 The Arizona Republic
Website: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24
Author: Linda Valdez

LIKE JESUS? LEGALIZE DRUGS

What would Jesus do? Legalize drugs.

Some mainstream Christians are flexing their muscles in the name of a
more restorative approach to substance abuse. A group of 600 United
Methodist churches in New England is calling for an end to the War on
Drugs.

They say it's the Christian way.

This isn't just about marijuana, though the marijuana legalization
folks are covering the story.

The resolution approved over the weekend by the New England Conference
of United Methodist Churches says "the public policy of prohibition of
certain narcotics and psychoactive substances . . . has failed to
achieve the goal of eliminating, or even reducing, substance abuse."

It goes on to list a great many negative effects from an expensive and
failed effort to treat substance abuse as a criminal problem. They
have a more restorative approach in mind.

The churches joined with Maryland-based Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition, according to a press release.

LEAP says the drug war wreaks havoc on public safety, damages
community relations with police, fosters corruption and racism, and
"has cost more than $1 trillion dollars, yielded no positive outcomes,
and has ultimately diverted the penal system's attention away from
more important crimes."

In the name of Christianity, the churches' resolution calls for
finding "means other than prohibition to address the problem of
substance abuse" and "to reduce the multitude of unintended harmful
consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to lessen
the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction by ending drug
prohibition."

The idea of ending prohibition of all illegal substances and
substituting treatment for punishment is quite radical.

But so were the teachings of Jesus.
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MAP posted-by: Matt