Pubdate: Fri, 12 Nov 1999
Date: 11/12/1999
Source: Kalamazoo Gazette (MI)
Author: Lyle Terry Perk

As a member of AARP and a retired citizen of this country, I feel it
is important to raise the issue that we are all casualities of
America's drug war.

While taxpayers continue to fund tens of billions of dollars through
the failed policy of Prohibition II, a drug program that has done
little more than wreak havoc on millions of otherwise law-abiding
citizens, or politicians, through the manipulation of pharmaceutical
companies, deny our elderly the affordability and availability of
insurance for prescription drugs.

Ad campaigns denouncing big government getting into our medicine
cabinets hide the real facts of corporate fear of common-sense price
controls which would ensure those in need of access to life-saving
drugs.  This corporate/Republican duo has used the same propaganda
technique for years under the guise of Partnership For a Drug-Free
America, which advocates continuing this insane war on some drugs,
like marijuana, because they can't profit from self-medicating
practices which bypass the corporate bank accounts.  It's not about
protecting the children, it's simply about money.

Some of us maybe slow, but we're not stupid.

Lyle Terry Perk
Plainwell