Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Pubdate: Fri, 2 Oct 1998
Author: DAVID RUCKER

NAFTA AND DRUGS

Recently, Sen. Kay Hutchison along with Congressmen Sam Johnson and
Pete Sessions received a thumbs up from The Dallas Morning News for
their efforts in the so-called "war on drugs." In listing Dallas and
Fort Worth as a "High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area," these
officials have opened the door to as much as $5 million of our tax
dollars to be wasted on this woefully inadequate effort.

It is too bad The Dallas Morning News and these brave distributors of
our money did not stand up and fight one of the greatest pieces of
drug use "enabling" legislation ever: NAFTA.

According to experts in and out of government service, the passage of
the North American Free Trade Agreement has generated a massive influx
of illegal drugs into this country - specifically into major
metropolitan areas adjoining north-south highways.

A superficial understanding of the drug problem may lead The Dallas
Morning News to praise efforts to solve the problem from the floor of
the House and Senate, but the sad fact is the root of the drug problem
is receiving careful watering under NAFTA's loosened up borders, while
our grandstanding paper and some politicians cheer the effort of
spending millions to lop off a leaf from the tree.

The moral of this story?

If you want to kill the tree of drugs, stop watering
it.

DAVID RUCKER
1007 Arborside
Mesquite, Tx 75150

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Checked-by: Rich O'Grady