Pubdate: Wed, 27 Mar 2013
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)
Copyright: 2013 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC.
Contact:  http://www.timesdispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/365
Author: Kirk Muse
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v13/n127/a03.html

TIME TO CHART A NEW WAR ON DRUGS

EDITOR, TIMES-DISPATCH:

Major kudos to Michael Paul Williams for his outstanding column, 
"Waging a war against mass incarceration," and to Michelle Alexander 
for her outstanding book, "The New Jim Crow."

When we re-legalized alcohol in 1933 after alcohol prohibition, we 
didn't surrender to the alcohol cartels - we put them out of 
business. When we legalize, regulate, tax and control our 
now-unregulated, untaxed and uncontrolled drugs, our overall crime 
rate will decline substantially. The drug dealers, drug lords and 
drug cartels will be out of business overnight and our robust 
prison-building industry will come to a screeching halt.

Many judges and prison wardens say that at least 70 percent of our 
violent crime and property crime is drug-related. Actually, almost 
100 percent of so-called drug-related crime is caused by our 
drug-criminalization policies - not the drugs themselves. When most 
types of recreational drugs were legally available on grocery store 
shelves and in pharmacies for pennies per dose, the term 
"drug-related crime" didn't exist. It's time to chart a new course in 
the drug war. Our policies are not working.

KIRK MUSE.

MESA.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom