Pubdate: Wed, 13 Mar 2002
Source: Denver Rocky Mountain News (CO)
Copyright: 2002, Denver Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/371
Author: Raymond K. Clark

DEFINITION OF IRONY

Here we go again. Another knee-jerk reaction to Doonesbury by one of those 
who just doesn't get it. While Jean Witte (" 'Doonesbury' damaging," Feb. 
17) is busy looking up marijuana in her encyclopedia, she should look in 
her dictionary for the definition of irony.

The cartoon in question was making an ironic point: the illegal marijuana 
saying it had caused no deaths, only arrests, while talking to the legal 
cigarette who was bragging about the deaths tobacco had caused, while both 
were drinking legal alcohol, which is well documented to be a killer. Jean 
is "betrayed" because the paper didn't censor a cartoon with an idea she 
doesn't agree with.

Millions of dollars are spent to entice people to smoke cigarettes and 
drink alcohol, known killers, yet "billions of taxpayer dollars are spent 
on drug interdiction . . ." to very little effect other than crowding our 
jails with people who just wanted to feel better.

The War on Drugs is a sham, and, indeed, the worst effects of drugs -- the 
gangs, the violence, the corruption of officials, the crime to support 
habits -- are all direct results of drug interdiction, just as they were 
during Prohibition in the 1920s.

Ironic, isn't it, that we never seem to learn.

Raymond K. Clark Littleton
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