Pubdate: Sat, 09 Dec 2000
Source: Hobbs News-Sun (NM)
Copyright: 2000 Hobbs News-Sun
Contact:  P.O. Box 850, Hobbs, N.M. 88240
Fax: (505) 393-5724
Website: http://www.hobbsnews.com/

DRUG CONTROVERSY ALIVE AND WELL IN AMERICA

My column last week on Gov. Johnson's Playboy interview on legalizing
drugs drew some interesting - and strong - responses.

We received numerous e-mails on the matter, most were negative - and
strongly so.

For example:

. "I found your comment about children allowed to go to opium dens
stupid and offensive" - Phoenix, Arizona.

. "The history books will place Ralph Damiani along side Stalin" -
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

. And my favorite, "Ralph Damiani may have a right to his opinion, but
in my opinion he is a narrow minded idiot."

And they went on. One writer even went so far as to say that "we have
a God-given right to ingest any drug."

Interesting.

Just goes to show that this a controversial issue. But there were
e-mails that went to points that I consider important.

. In the past 10 years, one and one-half million Americans have died
from the effects of alcohol.

. Teen-agers in New Mexico likely have no trouble purchasing a host of
dangerous drugs.

. The United States has a love affair with drugs, largely the legal,
pharmaceutical kind. We have drugs for anything.

These are issues worth discussing - and highlight the point of not
putting even more, even more dangerous, drugs out for free public
consumption.

We do not need to say that abuse of alcohol and over-the-counter drugs
is all right; we need to say that drug abuse is bad. All drug abuse.

How can we say that if we say that cocaine, crack and marijuana are
legal, therefore are all right.

While we might like to make light of our war on drugs, what is the
choice? Yes, our youth - and our adults - have too ready an access to
drugs. Why do we want to give them more?

Work on education, on treatment and on - yes - enforcement is where we
should be putting our efforts. It should not be put into campaigns to
make heroin legal.

The solution to this matter is to work to take drugs - all drugs - out
of the hands of people. It is not to find ways to make it easier to
place them in people's hands.
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