Pubdate: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 Source: Contra Costa Times (CA) Copyright: 2008 Knight Ridder Contact: http://www.contracostatimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/96 Author: Nick LaPrade WAR ON DRUGS WAS LOST A LONG TIME AGO The points in a Jan. 19 letter are irrefutable as the writer concludes "Regulating and taxing drugs, not the counterproductive drug war is best for our safety, economy and budget." Please also note that Taliban-backed heroin supply chains enabled by our war on drugs as well as those for cocaine from our bellicose, socialist-leaning neighbors in South America, are our major and most incalculable security threats. Prohibition enables these clandestine supply chains that, once in place, are available to our mortal enemies for use to infiltrate myriad weapons of mass destruction: anthrax, uranium, plutonium and key trained individuals. We shoot ourselves in the head with this stupid war on drugs that conquers only our weakest citizenry with prison instead of education and treatment through this huge proven waste of precious tax revenue. Given the data to date in the war on drugs, it was lost last century. Yet it's entrenched bureaucracy perpetuates its insanity at the exponentially increasing risk of better enabling our true enemies to hasten our own demise. We should attack to defeat our enemies in waging our wars instead of ourselves. Nick LaPrade Pleasanton - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake