Pubdate: Sun, 27 Dec 2015
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 2015 The Baltimore Sun Company
Contact:  http://www.baltimoresun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37
Author: Lisa Pintzuk
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n708/a05.html

END DRUG PROHIBITION

After reading "The economics of heroin" (Dec. 20), I was more 
convinced than ever that the war on drugs has failed miserably.

While it is true that we must do all we can to create employment 
opportunities in Baltimore and other cities with selfperpetuating 
pockets of poverty, "jobs" in the drug trade are not the answer. It 
is obvious that young people with no hope of financial success in 
minimum wage jobs will turn to the heroin market as a potentially 
lucrative career and mock those who choose another route.

Until we start treating drug addiction as the medical problem it is 
and decriminalize all drugs, we will continue to see lives ruined by 
people whose only idea of success is making it to the upper ranks of 
the drug market.

How many lives will be wasted before we realize that the prohibition 
of drugs is an even worse policy than the prohibition of liquor was 
almost a century ago?

Lisa Pintzuk, Owings Mills
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom