Pubdate: Thu, 25 Jul 2002
Source: Savannah Morning News (GA)
Copyright: 2002 Savannah Morning News
Contact:  http://www.savannahnow.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/401
Author: Dick Wooley

AMERICA'S WAR ON DRUGS JUST ISN'T DOING ANY GOOD

Why can't Americans and the officials they elect get their priorities 
straight? We've put 750,000 American citizens in jail for marijuana, but 
only one terrorist.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon's drug war started with $100 million; 
today it's $9 billion. Social Security checks were $135 a month in 1972. If 
they had gone up at the same rate, today Social Security checks would be 
$30,000.

And don't say, "What'll we tell the children?" If you don't know that 
children see through the hypocrisy of our drug policy when an ex-senator is 
hawking the recreational sex drug Viagra, and that three-quarters of a 
million Americans languish in jail for drug use, while others have drug 
rehab centers in California named after them, then you are part of the problem.

Law enforcement says it doesn't have the funds to check the status of all 
the foreign students in American flight schools, but they do have the funds 
to prosecute nearly 1 million American marijuana users.

It's a fact that when you arrest a drug dealer the price of drugs go up, 
the profit goes up and the rich drug lords, who finance terrorists, call us 
fools because we are fools.

America has been trying to shove hay in the wrong end of the horse for too 
long. Note to Democrat and Republican elected officials: Make changes or 
help make changes, or in the next elections we'll change your status from 
elected official to unemployed.

DICK WOOLEY

Tybee Island
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens