Pubdate: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 Source: Delta Democrat Times (MS) Copyright: 2004 Delta Democrat Times Contact: http://www.ddtonline.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2123 Author: Jose Melendez Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n129/a02.html STOP TRAMPLING ON OUR RIGHTS To the editor: Donald V. Adderton's characterization of the Goose Creek (S.C.) High School pot raids as "a little overzealous" makes me question his qualifications to responsibly edit the Delta Democrat Times. In an age where high school kids hopped up on Ritalin, Prozac, caffeine and several ounces of white sugar are dared to turn in their parents over joints that supposedly fund terror, we don't need any more propaganda from those who are supposed to be journalists. Americans sworn to uphold the laws of the land unlawfully violate freedoms from unreasonable searches and seizures, to pursue happiness and of speech, racketeering and antitrust rules, including restraint of trade. They create careers for crooks, many with badges issued with their guns. In fact, historical trends show that substance prohibitions increase abuses and homicides across the board. While newspapers at one time or another encouraged whites to disdain the Chinese for their opium use, blacks and Hispanics continue in that tradition today as a scapegoat by which to justify pot prohibition. Despite the fact that whites and minorities use illegal drugs in about the same proportions, court records and prison logs prove that drug laws are enforced per capita in inverse proportions to the offender's skin color. Tellingly, today's media ignore the hypocrisy of laws that enable weapons of mass destruction to kill millions of cigarette, booze and pill addicts, while those who choose far safer generic intoxicants or medications are offered arrest and asset forfeiture as "treatment." To this day, despite a mantra that smoked marijuana is "a cruel hoax on the sick and dying," all federal agencies and most neoconservative newspapers turn a blind eye to the pending Food and Drug Administration approval of cancer sticks - as medical devices. It's true that there are drugs in our midst. But aggressive responses to that intrusion is not welcome should rightly come from those pot smoking kids who were actually in school at 6:30 a.m. Anti-drug agencies reluctantly concede that their efforts to date have increased high school marijuana use to more than 50 percent. Yet the fact that only .2 percent of the nation is addicted to hard drugs seems to escape the grasp of gateway theory proponents. If anything, such statistics indicate marijuana use discourages hard drug habits. Instead, taxpayer funded, full page newspaper ads and slick television pitches encourage the wholesale jailing of an oppressed class of people, as if it is so much entertainment. It's time citizens put law enforcers and career propaganda workers on notice: The jig is up. That you exempt yourselves and your cohorts while you make, enforce or advocate such hypocrisy proves that drug war is crime. Jose Melendez, DeLand, Fla. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin