Pubdate: Wed, 21 Feb 2007
Source: Creative Loafing Atlanta (GA)
Copyright: 2007, Creative Loafing
Contact:  http://www.atlanta.creativeloafing.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1507
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n182/a07.html
Author: Kirk Muse
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

LEGALIZE IT!

Major kudos to John Sugg for his outstanding column (Metropolis, 
"Kathryn Johnston's real killer," Feb. 15). Imagine if we had no 
"drug-related crime." Imagine if our overall crime rate was a small 
fraction of our current crime rate.

We once had such a situation here in the United States. Prior to the 
passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, the term "drug-related 
crime" didn't exist. And drug lords, drug cartels or even drug 
dealers as we know them today didn't exist either.

Back then, all types of recreational drugs were legally sold to 
anybody with no questions asked, for pennies per dose in grocery 
stores and pharmacies. Did we have a lot more drug addicts then 
compared with now? No. We had about the same percentage of our 
population addicted to drugs, according to U.S. federal Judge John L. 
Kane of Colorado.

Since the vast majority of all of our violent crime and property 
crime is caused by our drug-prohibition policies, the common-sense 
solution is to relegalize all of our now-illegal drugs. Then the 
drugs can be sold in legal, regulated and licensed business 
establishments. Then drug dealers as we know them today will 
disappear for economic reasons. Then our so-called "drug-related 
crime" will be in our past -- not our future. This would eliminate 
the lure of the "forbidden fruit" that makes drugs so attractive to children.

- -- Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman