Pubdate: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 Source: Free Press, The (Houston, TX) Copyright: 2006 The Free Press, Houston Contact: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3222 Note: This newspaper does not have a website. Author: Dean Becker DRUG USERS ARE UNCONDITIONALLY EXTERMINABLE The questions I pose in response to the 90 plus years of anti-drug propaganda, hysteria and vicious and ugly war are simple and yet no response has ever been received from the drug warriors the true outlaws of the drug war: Is it possible to curtail our children's easy access to drugs? What can we do to destroy the cartels, terrorist groups, violent gangs and the institutional corruption that thrives because of drug prohibition? How can we cut back on the number of overdoses and diseases caused by drug use? Answer: End prohibition. The day we regulate the distribution of these "illegal drugs" to adults is the day we take away the worth of Osama bin Laden's opium stash. Osama will no longer be able to turn flowers into gold to buy bigger weapons with which to kill us. On the day of regulation, we destroy the cartels in Colombia, Kabul and Laredo. When we allow state regulated distribution, the violent gangs that sell drugs to our children will lose their market, their profits and their power when drugs sell for pennies, not dollars. We will then have lots of room in prison to house any who would dare sell drugs to our children. In most jurisdictions, the scenario that ensures more of our children will die from drug use includes two basic facts. You cannot call for help, following a potential overdose because to do so may also entail a decade behind prison bars. Nor is it always possible to legally obtain a clean injection syringe, so needles are often re-used or even shared, which ensures a constant increase in the number of hepatitis and AIDS cases amongst our youth. So, the real question becomes, why does this drug war still exist? How and why did we let it come to this point of zero tolerance for logic? The answer of course is Ca Ching=85 money. Let's talk about how much money is involved. In the US, we spend more than $200 billion every year, purchasing our recreational drugs: cocaine, smack, marijuana and the rest. Each year in the US, we spend $69 billion dollars for law enforcement, prisons, probation, urine testing, etc. for "waging" this drug war. A total of $269 billion dollars a year going to criminals and cops, politicians and pot growers, opium growers, traffickers and sellers and officials of every stripe who "make their bones", by being tougher, (though certainly less smart), on drugs. 269 billion, how do we envision such a number, how can we picture such a sum? First off, a cubic foot of cash, in hundred dollar bills is $2,304,000. A railroad car is typically 62 feet long. Each year, we give 69 billion to the cops, enough cash to fill 9.6 railroad cars with hundred dollar bills. Each year, in the US, we give 200 billion to street corner vendors, gangsters, cartels and terrorist organizations; enough cash to fill 27.96 railroad cars, with $100 bills. Enough cash EVERY YEAR, to fill a train 2,331 feet long, stuffed with $100 bills. Yet drugs are in the main, cheaper, purer and more freely available to our children than ever before. Through endless propaganda, eternal media campaigns and through the arrest of 1.6 million Americans each year for baggies of plant products, fear continues to rule over logic, common sense and reality. "But ain't that America?" Please listen to Cultural Baggage, Century of Lies and the 4:20 Drug War News on KPFT Radio, 90.1 FM, Houston, www.kpft.org. Visit www.DrugTruth.Net (58 Broadcast Affiliates in the US and Canada.)