{news} Fw: Charleston Gazette Editorial: Prohibition - Causing drug violence?

[Kenneth Humphrey]

     Don't overlook WHUS-this alternative station is
every bit as involved in the stuff WWUH and WPKN is.

     Ken Humphrey-Windham
--- clifford thornton <efficacy at msn.com> wrote:

> Connecticut Green Party - Part of the GPUS
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> mailto://ctgp-news-unsubscribe@ml.greens.org> Mike
D, this is the guy that has the syndicated
> radio for NPR.--You corresponded with him.  Please,
> Please see if you can get this going at WWUH and
> Wpkn.
> 
> Cliff 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: Dean Becker<mailto:dean at cultural-baggage.com> 
> To: aro at drugsense.org<mailto:aro at drugsense.org> 
> Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 2:06 AM
> Subject: ARO: Charleston Gazette Editorial:
> Prohibition - Causing drug violence?
> 
> 
>       'Scuse me, but I'm proud of being quoted by a
> newspaper editor, (with my "mantra";)
> 
>      
>
http://wvgazette.com/section/Editorials/2006060922<http://wvgazette.com/section/Editorials/2006060922>
> 
>       June 10, 2006  
>       The Charleston Gazette: Prohibition
> 
>       a.. Causing drug violence?
> 
>      
>      
> 
>       THIS week's mass murder in a drug-infested St.
> Albans suburb raises a troubling thought: Much of
> America's criminality and gun violence among addicts
> and illegal drug dealers apparently is spawned by
> the nation's harsh prohibition of narcotics.
> 
>       Almost a century ago, the United States
> plunged into Prohibition, the criminalization of
> alcohol. Immediately, illicit dealers began
> supplying bootleg booze in the shadows. Gun battles
> erupted between rival rum-runners. Prisons were
> crammed with alcohol offenders. Police and judges
> were bribed to overlook "speakeasy" bars. Street
> gangs and the Mafia grew in that grotesque time.
> 
>       After Prohibition was repealed, alcohol became
> legal under state regulation - and the wave of
> alcohol crimes faded.
> 
>       Today history is repeating itself, via
> criminalization of disapproved drugs. Illicit
> dealers supply banned substances in the shadows. Gun
> battles erupt between rival operators. Prisons are
> crammed with narcotics offenders. Police and judges
> sometimes are bribed to look the other way. Street
> gangs and the Mafia profit from the lucrative trade.
> So do Muslim terrorists who control Afghanistan's
> opium poppies, and Latin American cartels in control
> of cocaine production. Local American peddlers carry
> guns, so they won't be robbed of their cash or
> stash. They sell to children or anyone able to buy.
> Addicts commit robberies to get money for daily
> fixes. Impure mixes by amateur suppliers cause
> overdose deaths.
> 
>       U.S. taxpayers spend $69 billion a year on the
> "war on drugs" - including the gigantic cost of
> arresting, trying or imprisoning 1.6 million
> Americans annually - but the war is being lost,
> because narcotics abuse remains as extensive as
> ever. The situation is bizarre.
> 
>       A national organization of current and former
> police officers, Law Enforcement Against
> Prohibition, calls for legalization of all drugs and
> control of them through public health agencies. LEAP
> would license legitimate suppliers of purified
> substances - and yank their licenses if they sold to
> children. LEAP speaker Dean Becker says:
> 
>       "The day we regulate drugs to adults, we
> eliminate easy access for our children, we evaporate
> the worth of Osama's heroin stash, we negate the
> Colombian drug cartels, we basically eliminate
> overdose deaths, and we begin to restore respect for
> the U.S. system of justice now tainted by black
> market billions."
> 
>       LEAP official Mike Smithson says America's
> prohibition of narcotics puts the drug business into
> the hands of armed criminals, producing "a St.
> Valentine's Day massacre every week." He referred to
> the famous 1929 event in Chicago, when seven
> rum-runners of the Bugs Moran gang were mowed down
> in an illegal liquor warehouse by the rival Al
> Capone gang.
> 
>       Legalizing alcohol again in 1933 gradually
> took gunfire out of the booze business. If America
> likewise legalized narcotics and regulated them
> through health agencies, would today's drug murders,
> police cost and prison expense similarly be
> eliminated? This newspaper long has called for
> legalization of marijuana, which is no more harmful
> than beer. LEAP advocates that step for all
> narcotics.
> 
>       Congress and West Virginia's Legislature
> should study this question - but don't hold your
> breath while you wait for change, because nearly all
> politicians brag about being "tough on drugs." Thus
> they guarantee that the narcotics trade will remain
> in the hands of criminals.
>      
> 
>
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