Pubdate: Mon, 03 Aug 2015
Source: Chico Enterprise-Record (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Chico Enterprise-Record
Contact:  http://www.chicoer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/861
Note: Letters from newspaper's circulation area receive publishing priority
Author: Hugh Rhodes

ENDING DRUG WAR WOULD FIX A LOT OF PROBLEMS

I invite readers to look up egomania and trumpery in the dictionary. 
But heck, I'll save them the time. Egomania is the obsessive 
preoccupation with the self. Trumpery is showy but worthless finery; 
nonsense: trickery. Also, consider "chameleon."

Donald Trump goes to Laredo, on the border, and lambasts trade with 
China, Korea and Japan, but no tirade against Mexico. Laredo is a 
commerce center for trade with Mexico. No Mexicans "eating our lunch" 
verbiage from El Trumpo. We see him hugging the mayor and 
congratulating the police chief. He even suggests a federal 
government position to the mayor - then "boom," out of there as he is 
feeling threatened so close to the border.

Now the Trump total wall with Mexico is only "certain sections" need 
a fence. "El Chapo," the drug lord, escapes a Mexican high-security 
prison via a mile-long tunnel. "El Chapo" and the cartels rule.

We fool ourselves that any wall will stop drugs - too much profit for 
the cartels. Drugs go into jails and prisons like the air. We can 
minimize illegal immigration. Rick Perry has high-tech ideas.

Is it not time to end the drug war? How about decriminalization of 
all drugs? Put them in the drugstore, combined with education on 
drugs and the dangers down to third grade. Uniform pharmaceutical 
doses will stop inadvertent overdoses. Have we not learned that 
government cannot legislate morality? The individual is responsible 
for his or her behavior, even in instances of overdose and death.

Any better ideas out there?

- - Hugh Rhodes, Magalia
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom