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THE
DRUG WAR |
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It
Cannot Be Won |
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Our grandfathers lived
through a decade of Prohibition in the 1920's. (I was there, just had my
94th birthday) The Volstead Act prohibiting the possession or use of
alcoholic beverages became law on Jan 10, 1919 when Nevada, became the
36th state to ratify it. After
a decade of violence, Al Capon and other rich drug lords, and still
plenty of alcohol available, Congress had the
good sense to repeal the act and make alcohol legal again (effective December 5, 1933).
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Where is the good sense and rationality of people and
Congress today? Unfortunately, it seems to be almost totally lacking.
We are seeing the same violence, shootings and battling for turf, with
innocent bystanders being killed. Drugs are not being kept out.
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Keeping them illegal makes
them very profitable. The
drug lords are ruthless. Numbers of Judges in Columbia have been
assassinated. Our own police have too often been corrupted. The great
profitability of the illegal drugs has even brought them to our schools
and children.
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Millions of dollars worth
of property have been seized without due process. Cash, boats, planes,
and other property have been taken, sometimes, according to reports,
from people who were innocent victims.
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Tobacco is as deadly as marijuana or cocaine. Yet cigarettes are legal
as is alcohol.
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Many thousands of people
have been sent to prison because they possessed cocaine or marijuana.
This has helped fill our prisons to overflowing, sometimes causing
violent prisoners to be released in order to make room for those
convicted on drug charges.
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The flood of drug
convictions has resulted in a massive prison building program, costing
taxpayers billions of dollars. Building the prisons is just a start.
Once built, it costs up to $30,000 per year to keep a person behind
bars.
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And thousands of these prisoners should not be guilty any more than a
person who smokes a cigarette or drinks a martini, except for our irrational
drug laws. A recent news report said the more than
two million people we have behind bars is five times the incarceration rate of
any European nation. |
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If we had the good sense of
our grandparents, we would abolish the drug laws. Then we would release from
prison all of those convicted for mere use or possession of drugs. Thousands of
lives wasting away at taxpayers expense would be made useful again, families
united.
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History shows that we humans have a tendency to want to control what other people think and
do. It is think and believe as I do, or else. Examples abound. In the dark ages of Europe, there were
the Inquisitions of our Christian clergy. Stalin sent millions to the
Gulag to rid them of wrong thoughts. In China millions were sent to
farms for reeducation.. In Cambodia, whole cities were marched to the
country to conform with the dictator’s beliefs.
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America has the freest and
most rational of all governments, we hope and believe. Yet we have sunk
to the same fanatic level, trying to require other people to believe and
conform to that of those
who believe they know what is best for other people.
Is imprisonment any less fanatical than the Gulag or the
reeducation of the Chinese and the Cambodians?
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A fraction of the money
spent on the drug WAR for
education and rehabilitation would do far more good. Are so many
people profiting from the drug war that Congress cannot bring itself to
abolish the laws. Do we, as some people say, have the
best government that money can buy?
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