Pubdate: Tue, 08 May 2001
Source: Erie Times-News (PA)
Copyright: 2001 Erie Times-News
Contact:  http://www.goerie.com/timesnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1347
Author: Robert Sharpe

DEATHS IN PERU ARE 'A WAKE-UP CALL': AMERICA MUST END ITS ANTI-DRUG 'WAR'

Regarding your ... May l editorial: The deaths of two ... members of an 
American missionary family in Peru should serve as a wake-up call. 
Autocratic former president Alberto Fujimori practiced a scorched earth 
campaign against Peru's Shining Path guerrilla movement, a movement 
financed by black market coca profits.

Allegations of corruption, rampant human rights violations and civilian 
deaths are remarkably similar to the current situation in Colombia. As 
Peruvian coca production has gone down, Colombian coca production and 
domestic methamphetamine production have both gone up, along with the U.S. 
incarceration rate, now the highest in the world.

When will the champions of the free market in the U.S. Congress acknowledge 
that immutable laws of supply and demand render the drug war a costly 
exercise in futility? This is not to say that all drugs should be 
legalized. Taxing and regulating marijuana would effectively undermine the 
black market. ... Current drug policy is a gateway policy. Separating the 
hard and soft drug markets and establishing strict age controls is 
critical. Right now kids have an easier time buying pot than beer. Drug 
policy reform may send the wrong message to children, but ... children are 
more important than the message. Opportunistic "tough on drugs" politicians 
would no doubt disagree.

Robert Sharpe

Drug Policy Foundation

Washington, D.C.
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MAP posted-by: GD