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