Pubdate: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 Source: Lansing State Journal (MI) Copyright: 2014 Lansing State Journal Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/qbTWpGoq Website: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/232 Author: Jim DiVietri WAR ON DRUGS BASED ON BAD PREMISE It's the 100th anniversary of Drug Prohibition and the drug black market courtesies of the Harrison Act of 1914. Bring those hard drugs back into a doctor's care and let's save around $75 billion to $95 billion for enforcement and incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders. Drug prohibition's purpose should be to save lives. It's turned into something else, the War on Drugs. As with any war on its own people, it can't be won. Let's stop burning witches (addicts) and save their lives through a doctor's care. The preventative care program in Vancouver, Canada, has saved lives, cut the AIDS epidemic, saved a lot of money and made the city more secure. Decriminalization of hard drugs would allow those to obtain drugs from a clinic under a doctor's care, obtain help to stop using, prevent violence, take the profit from the cartels and above all save lives. That's what the WOD was supposed to do. Decriminalization of drugs may seem to be against what we were taught. Most of what we were taught about the WOD was wrong. Jim DiVietri Lansing - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom