From: [m--w--l] at [deep-13.gizmo.com]
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: What I actually sent to the Beacon-News
Date: 6 Mar 93 10:19:21 GMT

I dropped this off at the Beacon Friday. We'll see if they print it.  
Perhaps my debut in the crackpot column (letters to the ed) is at 
hand.

This is basically the same letter I posted before, except that I expanded 
on the personal responsibility issue and ran it through a spell checker.

I gloss over a lot of common coin t.p.d stuff, but I wanted to keep this to
a typical Beacon-sized letter. If if gets printed, I'm certain that it will
stimulate debate.


*************************
Editor, The Beacon-News:

In your March 1 editorial (Drug war clearly needs new tack) you note the
continued escalation of drug-related violence. You write about drug-connected
violence and describe how addiction to cocaine, heroin and crystal
meth[amphetamine] fuels the violence. You suggest a shift in funding away from
coercive (law enforcement) measures in favor of treatment and rehabilitation
programs.

I believe that your suggestions, while preferable to the Reagan/Bush approach,
are still doomed to failure. 

The reason we have "drug-related" crimes is less attributable to the nature of
illegal drugs themselves than it is to our criminalization of trade in the
drugs. Drug dealers charge extremely high prices for their products to
compensate for the legal and extra-legal risks to which they are exposed. Since
they operate beyond the protection of the law, their disputes are settled
privately and sometimes not so privately, with guns. (A cocaine retailer can
hardly bring civil suit against his wholesaler if he feels cheated in a
transaction.) Dealers pass their high prices on to their customers. Addicts are
forced to turn to criminal enterprises to supply sufficient funds to purchase
their drugs because the price is so high.

If drugs were legal none of the above would happen and the state could tax the
sale of the drugs and apply their revenues toward treatment programs for the
addicted. Thus we could end the drug-related violence in our country and
simultaneously create a pool of money tens of thousands of times greater than
what is currently available for the treatment of addictions, money which
currently comes from everyone, drug user or not in the form of higher taxes for
prisons, higher taxes for increased police force size, devalued property, and
higher insurance premiums.

Or to put it simply: there is nothing magically different between the
prohibition of alcohol and the prohibition of other drugs.

Supporting the legalization of drugs does not mean supporting drug abuse, as
evidenced by our society's treatment of alcohol abusers. For example, we allow
our citizens to purchase and consume alcohol, but we don't allow them to drive
their cars while drunk. When someone abuses alcohol by driving drunk we fine
them, suspend their license and throw them in jail. We don't excuse violent or
criminal conduct because of drunkenness-- we expect and insist on personal
responsibility and accountability from alcohol users. We pity, rehabilitate,
and punish when necessary, those who abuse alcohol. The era of the endearing
comical drunk has been replaced by the designated driver and knowing "when to
say when." We should expect the same from users of other drugs. 

To those who ask "But how will you keep it away from the school children," I
ask why a teenager today can buy cocaine, pot and LSD from a schoolmate but
can't get whisky at the OSCO? The answer is obvious: OSCO would lose its liquor
license if it sold alcohol to minors-- then they couldn't sell any alcohol to
anyone.

Some will read this, pound their table and cry "But there will be an explosion
of addiction in this country!" Let's talk about ourselves for a moment. How
cheap does crack cocaine have to become before you decide to become an addict?
Why aren't you an alcoholic cigarette addict right now? (Did you know that
nicotine is more addictive than heroin or cocaine?) If you are hooked on
tobacco, why aren't you stealing car stereos to feed your nicotine habit? If
you're an alcoholic, do you have the moral right to imprison me for drinking a
glass of wine with my dinner because of your powerlessness over alcohol? 

Let me remind you that drug use-- including cocaine use-- was on the decline
when Ronald Reagan declared the "War on Drugs". Crack cocaine didn't even exist
before the war on drugs, it was created by the war on drugs.

Our approach to drug policy is fundamentally wrong and must be changed. The
only ones benefiting from the current policies are drug peddlers and prison
construction companies.


Maxwell Monningh, Aurora.



regards.max
[mmonnin g h] at [igc.apc.org]
IMI phone dude.