Pubdate: Tue, 13 May 2003 Source: Delta Democrat Times (MS) Copyright: 2003 Delta Democrat Times Contact: http://www.ddtonline.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2123 Author: Alan Randell THE FRAUD OF THE DRUG WAR Editor: I have a few questions about the Delta Democrat Times' enthusiastic support of drug prohibition: Do you agree with these words taken from the Declaration of Independence? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." Doesn't this imply that people have the right to ingest any drug in pursuit of their particular version of happiness, however, harmful, so long as they physically harm no one else? By "harm," I don't mean making your family unhappy, otherwise we would be jailing every divorced parent and every child who didn't do his or her homework. Is it not true that banning a drug harms users more because it forces them to rely on a drug whose potency and purity are unknown? Weren't thousands of alcohol users poisoned and blinded during Prohibition? Didn't the dying and the blinding stop when alcohol was legalized again? Is it not true that, far from making life safer for everyone, banning a drug encourages more crime and violence than when the drug was legally available? Did Al Capone create Prohibition or was it the other way around? Is it not true that if drugs were legalized, the flow of funds to terrorist groups would dry up? How much money does Osama bin Laden make from booze and tobacco? If drugs are banned because they are harmful to users, why, then, are tobacco and alcohol not banned? Doesn't this seem unfair to those who prefer illegal drugs? If we ban one harmful drug, shouldn't we ban all harmful drugs? Is it not true that if meth were legalized, the manufacturing process would be subject to government safety regulations and would hence be no more dangerous to the workers, to the neighbors or to the environment than the average distillery is today? If a constitutional amendment was required to ban alcohol, why was an amendment not required to ban drugs? Canada's 1973 Le Dain Commission concluded, "There appears to be little permanent physiological damage from chronic use of pure opiate narcotics." Why, then, ban heroin? Drug prohibition is nothing less than a state-sanctioned pogrom directed against an identifiable minority (innocent drug users and distributors) to first, ostracize them, and then, to annihilate them. Alan Randell, Victoria, British Columbia, - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom