Pubdate: Thu, 21 Dec 2006
Source: Daily News Journal  (Murfreesboro, TN)
Copyright: 2006 The Daily News Journal
Contact: 
http://dnj.midsouthnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=CUSTOMERSERVICE03
Website: http://dnj.midsouthnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1709
Author: Redford Givens

CRIMINALIZING DRUG MARKET CAUSES MORE CRIME

To the editor,

After 92 straight years of failure, it is amazing that The Daily News
Journal still thinks there is any virtue in a lunatic drug crusade.
Rather than saving kids from dangerous drugs, drug prohibition exposes
everyone to a dangerous criminal black market that functions in the
shadows of Murfreesboro and every other city in Tennessee.

History shows that no one was robbing, whoring and murdering to get
drugs when addicts could buy all of the heroin, morphine, cocaine and
anything else they wanted cheaply and legally at the corner pharmacy.
A legal heroin habit cost less than tobacco addiction (25 cents per
week) and "drug crime" was unknown.

Unintentional opiate overdose deaths were extremely rare before drugs
were outlawed. Most drug deaths before the Harrison Narcotic Act
(1914) were suicides. Nowadays, drug czar John Walters tells us there
are more than 30,000 accidental drug deaths in the United States every
year.

The terms "drug crime" and "drug death" are an invention of
prohibitionists trying to cover the effects of their failed drug policy.

Proof that hard-line, American-style drug prohibition causes drug
deaths and drug crimes comes from the Swiss Heroin Maintenance
Program, where addicts are supplied with cheap, pure heroin and
cocaine. Overdose deaths and injection-transmitted diseases (HIV/AIDS,
Hepatitis C, etc.) are now a rarity in Switzerland. The Swiss have not
had a single overdose death in the program. Crime among Swiss addicts
has dropped 97 percent and the criminal drug black market has vanished
since the Swiss began providing addicts with cheap legal drugs. Swiss
policy has resulted in an 82 percent decrease in heroin addiction since 1990.

Using jail cells to treat addicts has not achieved similar success in
Murfreesboro or anywhere in the world since 1914.

The Bible condemns failed counterproductive drug war
policies:

Matthew 15-20: "Be on the watch for the false prophets that come to
you in sheep's covering, but inside they are ravenous wolves. 16 By
their fruits you will recognize them. Never do people gather grapes
from thorns or figs from thistles, do they? 17 Likewise every good
tree produces fine fruit, but every rotten tree produces worthless
fruit; 18 a good tree cannot bear worthless fruit, neither can a
rotten tree produce fine fruit. 19 Every tree not producing fine fruit
gets cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Really, then, by their
fruits you will recognize those [men]." Jesus Christ

School sweeps are just another facet of an insane drug war that makes
children many times more likely to become involved with dangerous
drugs. Anyone truly concerned about the victims of drugs will work to
end an immoral drug crusade that murders more than 30,000 people every
year and spawns a multitude of criminal activity.

Redford Givens,

Lincoln Way,

San Francisco, Calif.
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