Pubdate: Tue, 05 Sep 2000
Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL)
Copyright: 2000 St. Petersburg Times
Contact:  http://www.sptimes.com/
Forum: http://www.sptimes.com/Interact.html
Section: Opinion, Letters
Author: Robert G. Zeitler, M.D., Dunedin
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1307/a07.html
Bookmark: additional articles on Colombia are available at 
http://www.mapinc.org/latin.htm

WAR ON DRUGS IS REALLY A FUTILE WAR WITH OURSELVES

Re: U.S. aid to Colombia.

Here comes another Vietnam! We will train the military of a government 
unpopular with its people. Presumably that military will win such battles 
as occur in a fluid guerrilla war, and the more victories we win the worse 
the situation will get. The drug crop cultivators will find new fields 
moving into neighboring nations, which will then need help. We will be 
viewed on the ground as imperialist bullies, who are foolish and ultimately 
impotent.

If this extension of the "drug war" occurs, hopefully it will prove to be 
the disastrous finale that finally wakes up the American people to the 
immorality, the expense, and the futility of what is really a war with 
ourselves.

As a society, we throw our political, technical and organizational skills 
against drug importation, distribution and consumption. We build prisons 
and wreak Draconian sentences on citizens, mostly young and black.

At the same time, we as a society pay whatever is the going price to 
acquire and use the drugs we are campaigning so hard against. If our 
society's hunger for first-class medical care for all was as strong as our 
society's hunger for drugs, we'd find plenty of money for universal medical 
care.

We pay for the drugs, and we pay for the war against them.

When will we wake up and discover, "We have met the enemy, and he is us"? 
When we do, then perhaps we can define and try to cope with the real problems.
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MAP posted-by: Thunder