Pubdate: Sun, 13 May 2001
Source: Northwest Florida Daily News (FL)
Copyright: 2001 Northwest Florida Daily News
Contact:  http://www.nwfdailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/313
Author: Peter Webster
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n820/a05.html

A FABULOUS FOLLY

Re: "The wrong stuff" (Daily News editorial, May 8).

With radical prohibitionists now appointed to every drug policy position in 
the current administration, perhaps we can finally enforce the drug laws as 
they should be enforced.

Let the Drug Enforcement Administration now arrest all drug users, whether 
casual or seriously addicted, all those weekend tokers, all those crazy 
mushroom imbibers and all those deluded "medical marijuana" fans, and let 
us build thousands of new prisons and treatment centers to house all these 
evil people, and finally ... finally ... what?

It's been said that the best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it 
to the maximum.

Let us hope the exaggeration of prohibition that seems certain to come 
during the current administration will demonstrate once and for all the 
fabulous folly of prosecuting consensual crimes in a free society, of 
locking up or forcibly "treating" people whose great misdeed is merely to 
prefer drugs other than the current range of socially and pharmaceutically 
approved ones.

PETER WEBSTER

Review Editor

International Journal of Drug Policy
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager