Pubdate: Fri, 26 Jan 2001
Source: Idaho State Journal (ID)
Copyright: 2001 Idaho State Journal
Contact:  PO Box 431, Pocatello ID 83204
Fax: 208-233-8007
Website: http://www.journalnet.com/
Author: Redford Givens

STOP LUNATIC DRUG POLICIES

After acknowledging that "what we're doing doesn't work" you insist on 
continuing lunatic drug policies that have been failing for 86 straight years.

If the editorial mavens on the Idaho State Journal ever bother to do the 
most basic research about drug prohibition you will quickly find that no 
one was robbing, whoring and murdering over drugs when addicts could buy 
all of the heroin, cocaine, morphine, opium and anything else they wanted 
cheaply and legally at the corner pharmacy. When drugs were legal addicts 
held regular employment, raised decent families and were indistinguishable 
from their teetotaling neighbors. Overdoses were virtually unheard of when 
addicts used cheap pure Bayer Heroin instead of the toxic potions 
prohibition puts on the streets. (See: The Consumers Union Report on Licit 
and Illicit Drugs http://www. 
druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm)

Where drug crime was unheard-of we now have prisons overflowing with drug 
users. Where addicts lived normal lives, we have hundreds of thousands of 
shattered families. Where overdoses were extremely rare we have tens of 
thousands of drug deaths every year.

The addiction rate is now five times greater than when we had no laws at 
all and 17-year-olds are the fastest growing group of heroin users. These 
are the consequences of the drug policies the Idaho State Journal endorses.

It is worth remembering that Eliot Ness and the revenuers never put the 
booze barons out of business. Repeal and a regulated market for adult 
alcohol use did that. Repeal and regulation will also take the crime out of 
drug use.

Redford Givens,

San Francisco
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