Pubdate: Thu, 18 Feb 1999
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 1999, The Tribune Co.
Contact:  http://www.tampatrib.com/
Forum: http://tampabayonline.net/interact/welcome.htm

DRUG WAR HAS BEEN LOST

What if 10,000 deaths a year could be stopped and major and minor
crime could be cut by 50 percent? What if everyone could be given
cheap or free medical care and we stopped drug dealers and cartels
from making money, stopped gangs, cut medical cost 30 to 90 percent,
stopped 10 million lives from being destroyed each year and could give
a 25 percent tax cut to everyone?

How, you ask? By making drug abuse a medical problem, not a criminal
one. We are not stopping drug use anyway.

There are too many hands in the pot. Money now going to drug dealers
and cartels could be going to government-run facilities that would
benefit everyone. The 25 percent tax cut would come from reductions in
government medical costs, prisons, courts, lawyers, Drug Enforcement
Administration cops, etc.

Guess who is against this? The same people who would rather see people
die than tell the truth and lose their jobs.

We could have safer streets and 10 million new taxpayers to share the
burden. Not bad for just giving Americans the freedom and health care
they deserve without their going bankrupt or to jail.

Will you or your son or daughter, be the next one trapped in the life-
destroying machine of the drug laws, or will you choose the health
care way? Please, let's have sane laws now.

JERRY DYCUS,
Riverview, FL
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