Pubdate: Thu, 06 Dec 2001
Source: WorldNetDaily (US Web)
Copyright: 2001 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/655
Author: Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D. and Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
Note: Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., of Newport Beach, Calif., writes 
extensively on medical, legal, disability and mental health reform. Robert 
J. Cihak, M.D., of Aberdeen, Wash., is the immediate past president of the 
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Both doctors are Harvard 
trained diagnostic radiologists. Collaborating as The Medicine Men, they 
write a weekly column for WorldNetDaily as well as numerous articles and 
editorials for newspapers, newsletters, magazines and journals nationally 
and internationally.

WHICH WAR ARE WE FIGHTING?

"Don't you know there's a war on?"

So ran one of the more popular admonitions of World War II. It meant, in 
effect, "What you're doing ain't exactly contributing to the effort, so 
best you mend your ways." The principle applies today. It's time for this 
country to mend its ways in a number of areas that no longer contribute 
(even if they ever did) to the common defense and the general welfare. 
Among them: the so-called war on drugs.

Time to call it off. We favor decriminalizing drug possession and use, 
starting with marijuana. But before explaining why, it's necessary to 
understand how these items got criminalized in the first place.

A century ago, all drugs were legal - and the human wreckage littered the 
landscape. A generation of Civil War veterans addicted to morphine; 
countless middle-class ladies dosing away their unhappiness with laudanum 
(an opium derivative); cocaine in Coca Cola; and an unregulated patent 
medicine industry using addictive substances to "treat" everything from 
impotence to flatulence.

According to Philip Gold, cultural historian and senior fellow at Seattle's 
Discovery Institute, "Progressive Era reformers allied with the emerging 
medical profession and the AMA to attack the problem, both using the issue 
to advance their own larger agendas." Reformers seeking to create what's 
now known as the "nanny state" got drug abuse added to their list of public 
health concerns. The doctors reined in the patent medicine industry and 
garnered a monopoly on the prescription of drugs. By the 1930s, it was 
illegal to possess any number of "controlled substances" without a doctor's OK.

The issue resurfaced in the '60s, and the positions of both sides froze 
into their pre-9/11 sterility. Arguments in favor of legalization ranged 
from "It's My Body and I'll Wreck It if I Choose" (and who pays your 
insurance?) to the common-sense notion that criminalizing drugs turns users 
into criminals, both by non-violent personal use and by the often-violent 
crimes users commit to pay for their habits. Arguments against legalization 
generally drew on the basic nanny-state mentality "Everything good should 
be a right; everything bad should be a crime" mentality, along with any 
number of religiously-attuned jeremiads.

Also popular: Marijuana use inevitably leads to harder drugs, from people 
playing with statistics. Yes, 90 percent of hard drug users may have 
started on marijuana, but that doesn't mean 90 percent of marijuana users 
move on to harder drugs. Only occasionally did people bother to ask whether 
the "war" on drugs was working, and at what cost.

Gary Becker, a Nobel laureate in economics, has. In a September Business 
Week article, he noted that the United States now spends $40 billion 
annually fighting this "war." Drug offenders, from kingpins to yuppies to 
derelicts, now account for 30 percent of all inmates in the burgeoning 
prison population. The Libertarian Party, in a Nov. 30 release, adds that 
in 2000 alone, police arrested 734,498 people for marijuana violations (up 
from 704,812). Of these, nearly 90 percent were charged only with possession.

Is marijuana harmful? Dr. Charles Tannock, a British psychiatrist and 
member of the European Parliament, wrote in the Nov. 21 edition of Wall 
Street Journal Europe that "the toxicity of the drug itself is probably 
smaller than that of aspirin, in terms of lethal dose."Marijuana is not 
physically addicting, unlike heroin.

Now, obviously, advocating legalization is not the same as encouraging use. 
Sky diving and smoking cigarettes are legal activities which we don't 
encourage - in fact, we discourage cigarette smoking as the health risks 
exceed the benefits. But we don't propose outlawing these activities.

Beyond that, it's time for Americans to face up to the fact that 
international drug smugglers are not simply modern-day Al Capone violent 
thugs but basically in it for the money. Drug trafficking funds any number 
of terrorist organizations. Every American who buys illegal drugs, directly 
or indirectly, gives aid and comfort to this nation's enemies.

And finally, police have more important things to do than fill the jails 
and courts with petty drug offenders. And it's not just that the resources 
are needed to track down terrorists. Since 9-11, many cities have seen an 
upsurge in major crimes committed by people who know that, with so many 
police off doing homeland security work, their chances for a successful 
murder, burglary or rape are greatly enhanced.

Nancy Reagan popularized the "Just say No" approach. It's still valid, but 
we would add, "Don't you know there's a war on?" No matter how lightly we 
dance around it, let's admit we are in World War III - against 60 countries 
and thousands of enemies within our midst.
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