Pubdate: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 Source: Maui News, The (HI) Contact: 2002 The Maui News Website: http://www.mauinews.com/ Author: Louis Silverstein Note: For more medical cannabis and cannabis eradication in Hawaii go to http://www.mapinc.org/areas/Hawaii WAR ON DRUGS DOES MORE HARM THAN DRUGS THEMSELVES Our country seemingly remains hellbent on wasting billions of dollars year after year on the longest war in U.S. history. Current drug policy has created vicious and ever expanding criminal networks that corrupt society, including police forces, and cause far worse damage and destruction than the substances being regulated. It is the war against drugs, not the drugs themselves, which has turned drug dealing into an enormous profit making machine, resulting in gangs and cartels killing each other and innocent members of their communities in the pursuit of the dollar. Drugs have always been associated with human populations and are here to stay, if only because the biological impulse to get high rivals the biological impulse for food, water and sex. Drug use must be distinguished from drug abuse. Drug abusers are those in bad relationships with drugs, whether legal or illegal. We can teach people how to satisfy their needs and desires without recourse to drugs. We can also teach people how to form good relationships with drugs so that if they choose to use drugs, they remain users and not abusers. As described in my recently published book, "Deep Spirit & Great Heart: Living In Marijuana Consciousness," responsible, respectful and disciplined use of marijuana affords one the insight that it is a plant teacher possessing potential enormous beneficial and healing qualities, that heaven is not a place but a state of consciousness in which a joyous daily existence, awareness of eternal truths, sexual ecstasy, heightening of ecological awareness, and spiritual enlightenment can become a life reality. America needs to adopt a drug policy that heals not harms our country and its people. We must learn from our past mistakes. We can do better than destroying the village in order to save it. Louis Silverstein Kihei - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk