Pubdate: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 Source: Monitor, The (McAllen, TX) Copyright: 2006 The Monitor Contact: http://www.themonitor.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1250 Author: Colleen Minter DRUG WAR A RUSE FOR GREED, FASCISM Amen, Andres Martinez! Leaders responsible for current quagmire will have to answer to a higher power for their crimes against humanity. It's time to end the terror by changing our intrusive, big-bully policies, both foreign and domestic. The monetary costs are staggering and the human suffering unconscionable. War is a tool governments use to make us more docile, more accepting of their waste of our precious lives and resources. Prohibition triggers violence and crime, plus it destroys families. There are an estimated 9 million American children orphaned because of the drug war. Corruption abounds! The biggest scandal is big corporations destroying democracy by lining the pockets of lawmakers. Influence peddling works for those who worship the almighty dollar but works against freedom from oppression, which Americans once held most dear. Drugs kill over 26 percent of those who die each year in the United States. Tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceuticals kill about a quarter of us. Less than 1 percent die from all illicit drug use; nada, no deaths are attributed to marijuana. The drug war hysteria is bogus and takes our eyes off the real killers we tolerate. I am a once-proud American because my country once stood for freedom from oppression. America now has the dubious honor of being number one in the world for having more people in prison than any other. The Land of the Used-to-be-Free is the most incarcerated nation in history! Colleen Minter a.k.a. Bonnie Colleen McCool Stephenville, Texas - --- MAP posted-by: SHeath(DPF Florida)