Pubdate: Fri, 18 May 2001 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) Copyright: 2001 The Dallas Morning News Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117 Author: Peter Webster Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n834/a06.html LET THE DEA ARREST ALL DRUG USERS Re: "New drug czar, DEA chief seen as hard-liners," May 11. With radical prohibitionists now appointed to every drug policy position in the current administration, perhaps the U.S. can finally enforce the drug laws like 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, all those deluded "medical marijuana" fans, and let thousands of new prisons and treatment centers be built to house all these evil people, and finally... finally... what? It has 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 present 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, Auvare, France - --- MAP posted-by: GD