Pubdate: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 Source: The Suncoast News(FL) Copyright: 2000 The Suncoast News Contact: 6214 U.S. 19, New Port Richey,FL 34652 Author: Myron Von Hollingsworth, Fort Worth, Texas NATION'S PROHIBITION-BASED DRUG POLICY REMAINS AN INEFFECTIVE ENIGMA Editor: Sometimes people just insist on staring the truth in the face and not acknowledging it. Prohibition can never succeed. In over one hundred years, prohibition has never even come close to succeeding. Our Law Enforcement institutions and even our very economies are now addicted - financially - to the war on drugs. Wake up world - this is a fiscal addiction. It is for this reason and many others that two conditions will always exist with prohibition. They are contradictory yet interdependent: - - Prohibition can't work. - - The war on drugs must never end. To those who disagree with reform, consider the following: I guarantee you that all the gun toting, murderous, ultraviolent, drug lord kingpins" who sell to and addict our children in order to generate huge, tax-free amounts of bribe money and profits to buy bigger and better homes, cars, lawyers and weapons are on your side. They not only appreciate but also thrive and depend on your point of view for their very existence. Maybe the politicians are required to adhere to the party line of prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison industrial complex, the drug testing industry, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the politicians themselves, et. al., can't live without the budget justification, not to mention the invisible profits, bribery, corruption and forfeiture benefits that prohibition affords them. The drug war also promotes, justifies and perpetuates racist enforcement policies and is diminishing many freedoms and liberties that are supposed to be inalienable according to the constitution and bill of rights. This is the enigma of drug policy today. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D