Pubdate: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 Source: Amarillo Globe-News (TX) Copyright: 2005 Amarillo Globe-News Contact: http://amarillonet.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/13 Author: Bob Ramsey Cited: Drug Policy Forum of Texas http://www.dpft.org DON'T LET GOVERNMENT STEAL OUR BIRTHRIGHT The Supreme Court's medical marijuana decision underscores the painful reality that drug prohibition must necessarily damage our form of government in its attempt to protect people from themselves. Thank you for noticing. This realization mobilized many of the opponents of alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. A passage from David Kyvigms lRepealing National Prohibitionn is appropriate here. At an organizational meeting in Detroit, a businessman said: "The people are not very much interested in the question of wet and dry, but they are very much interested in the question of the form of government under which they shall live. They realize that Prohibition is not a real disease, but merely a symptom of a very great and deep-seated disease - the disease of . . . centralization of government from Washington . . . that extends now into our home and to the dinner table." Whether it be prohibition of alcohol or marijuana or chainsaws, the result is the same. In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, our lawmakers have decided that freedom s what we proudly call our most precious birthright s has become too dangerous to pass on to our children. BOB RAMSEY Drug Policy Forum of Texas Irving - --- MAP posted-by: SHeath(DPFFlorida)