Pubdate: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 Source: Florence Times Daily (AL) Copyright: 2002 Times Daily Contact: http://www.timesdaily.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1641 Author: Redford Givens Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n265/a08.html HASN'T WORKED YET To the Editor: "Jury finds man guilty in shooting." Has anyone in Tuscumbia ever stopped to think that Eric Moss's shooting and the hundreds of other injuries and murders related to drug dealing would never happen except that drugs are illegal? Moss's shooting was the result of greed, not drug intoxication. True "drug crimes" are rare since being high usually calms aggressive tendencies. Colbert County District Attorney Alverson misleads the public when he implies that "drugs" are causing the problems created by America's lunatic drug crusade. Illegal drugs and violence are linked primarily through drug marketing: disputes among rival distributors, arguments and robberies involving buyers and sellers, property crimes committed to raise drug money. Drug prohibition causes so much needless crime that we could eliminate 85 percent of all burglary and street crime overnight by ending drug prohibition. It's worth remembering that no one was robbing, whoring and murdering over drugs when addicts could buy all of the heroin, cocaine, morphine, opium and anything else they wanted cheaply and legally at the corner pharmacy. When drugs were legal, addicts held regular employment, raised decent families and were indistinguishable from their teetotaling neighbors. Overdoses were virtually unheard of when addicts used cheap pure Bayer Heroin instead of the expensive toxic potions prohibition puts on the streets. The crime, disease and death associated with "drugs" are the result of a prohibition scheme that has never worked for anything, anywhere, anytime. Redford Given San Francisco - --- MAP posted-by: Beth