Pubdate: Tue, 12 Dec 2006
Source: Greenwich Time (CT)
Copyright: 2006, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc
Contact:  http://www.greenwichtime.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/697
Author: Clifford Wallace Thornton Jr.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

LOOK FOR ANOTHER DRUG PROBLEM TO BE MISHANDLED

To the editor:

"Now is time to head off drug scourge" (Advocate editorial, Dec. 9) 
is yet another example of the insanity by our authorities in a long 
line of insane acts.

Let us not forget alcohol, cannabis, heroin, cocaine and the success 
we had with keeping these drugs off the street. Now, methamphetamine.

The authorities are using the same tactics to combat meth as they 
used with all the other illegal drugs. Yet there are more drugs at 
cheaper prices on our streets than ever before. Insanity is doing the 
same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

In sports, if a center-fielder drops the fly ball, you can't pretend 
he didn't. There's also an awareness of patterns - a relationship 
between what has gone before and what is to come that is so strong in 
sports coverage that doesn't seem to be there in news reporting.

The authorities and, for the most part, the media have dropped the 
ball and are pretending they haven't dropped the ball. Every time the 
authorities announce a new policy on a so-called new drug or the 
reappearance of one, we do the same old thing.

I raised this issue during my campaign for governor on the Green 
Party ticket. The press, for the most part, and other candidates 
avoided this issue. History says "we are doomed to make the same 
mistakes over and over again."

Well, here we go again with methamphetamine. Let's stop pretending 
that the authorities have not dropped the ball.

Clifford Wallace Thornton Jr.

Hartford
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman