Pubdate: Wed, 29 Feb 2012
Source: Parry Sound North Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 Metroland Media Group Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.cottagecountrynow.ca/community/parrysound
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1618
Author: Kirk Muse
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v12/n147/a08.html

USA'S WAR ON DRUGS DOOMED

I'm writing about Howard Wooldridge's thoughtful letter: Prohibition 
not the answer, published in the February 22, North Star.

The American-led war on drugs was doomed from the very beginning.

Regardless of the money put into the anti-drug program, one cannot 
nullify the basic supply and demand law of economics.

As long as people want to purchase recreational drugs and are willing 
to pay a substantial price to buy them, somebody will produce them 
and somebody else will somehow get the drugs to the willing buyers.

This is guaranteed.

The war on drugs has transformed the United States into the most 
incarcerated nation in history.

With less than five per cent of the world's population, the US has 
almost one fourth of the world's prisoners.  In other words, one out 
of every four prisoners in the world is locked in an American prison, 
thanks primarily to America's counter-productive war on certain 
(politically selected) drugs. The United States government is in no 
position to give any other nation advice on how to run an anti-drugs campaign.

No other nation has wasted more resources on fighting drugs and no 
other nation has imprisoned more citizens for drug law violations 
than the US, yet no other nation has been less successful in solving 
its drug problem than the United States.

My advice to Canada and the rest of the world: Carefully observe the 
US drug policy and do the opposite.

Don't follow us - we're lost.

Kirk Muse Arizona
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom