Pubdate: Sun, 08 Aug 1999 Source: Columbian, The (WA) Copyright: 1999 The Columbian Publishing Co. Contact: http://www.columbian.com/ Forum: http://www.webforums.com/forums/trace/host/msa70.html MAY WE STOP THE DRUG WAR? Dear Editor, Recently, I've been reading reports about the United States Government and how it is advocating another injection of tax dollars to the Columbian government for anti-drug war efforts. Government speak: "We need more cops. We need to spend more money. Bigger bureaucracy. Build more prisons. Send more foreign aid to here or there. Create harsher drug laws. Sentence people longer so it'll send a message to the "children". Does uncle sam really care about the children? When are Americans to wake up? We "allow" the federal government to spend in excess of $18 billion dollars a year fighting a war against inanimate objects. A war declared by our government on an object or objects that cannot by any definition, think on their own behalf, have no intelligence or decision making abilities. To further scrutinize, the War on Drugs isn't a war on drugs at all. It's a money making buisness. A 30 years ago, President Nixon declared war against marihuana in the 1970's. President Reagan hopped on board and created the Drug Abuse Act in 1988 which doubled manditory minimums, increased spending and took away even more rights from the American people. The results in this war are not impressive by any measure. Prisons are exploding. Hard drugs are as readily available on the street corner to any child as ever before. Now retired general Barry McCaffrey is propagandizing Columbia is in a "desperate" crisis, that we should jump into the civil war to curb importation of drugs into America. Vietnam? Smells akin to it. Lastly, I have two questions. General Barry McCaffrey and the D.E.A. are policy enforcers. As I last checked, they are not authorized to practice medicine. Is it not the educated Harvard graduate physician that retains the expertise on the "authority" to which medical marihuana/patient issue resides? In addition, numerous physician assocations support medical cannabis, including the American Medical Association. It is not federal law. It is Constitutionally guaranteed California state law, of the people, for the people, by the people, voted in favor by 56% of the people. How much money and resources are we, as nation, in the name on the War on Drugs, going to allow before we no longer have any freedoms, are left empty handed with the same or worse situation than we have now? End prohibition. Regulate drugs. It's the only way to guarantee Constitutional freedoms and the only way to keep drugs out of hands of children. Scott Dykstra - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart