{news} "Problem isn't parole; it's drug criminalization"

[Clifford Thornton]

http://www.journalinquirer.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18832500&BRD=985&PAG=461&dept_id=458252&rfi=6<http://www.journalinquirer.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18832500&BRD=985&PAG=461&dept_id=458252&rfi=6>

09/19/2007

Criminalization's the problem

Most Nutmeggers have always opposed the Bush regime's illegal Iraq war, seeing through the false rationales for it and understanding that it is ultimately a power-grab for control of Middle Eastern petroleum - supposedly the most valuable military-strategic prize in the world's history.

However, we are still not taking a close enough look at another fantastically-expensive war - more costly in the number of human lives affected than the Iraq boondoggle.

Chris Powell illustrates this in his powerful column "Problem isn't parole; it's drug criminalization" (Sept. 8). This, of course, is the never-ending Drug War, the so-called "War on Drugs," that began with the outlawing of marijuana in the early part of the 20th century, and increased greatly with the inception of the Rockefeller drug laws in New York , the crack cocaine scare of the early 1980s, federal "mandatory minimum" sentences, and "three strikes you're out" laws.

Many violent criminals are let out of jail early to make room for drug offenders. I am talking about murders, rapists, and child molesters. At Web sites, one can view a clock that estimates the ongoing and increasing cost of these terrible laws to Americans.

All this for a problem that is essentially not a crime problem, but a public health challenge, because that's what addiction essentially is - a medical problem.

Stay away from intoxicants, especially including alcohol and tobacco, which generate far more medical and accidental harm than the illegal ones. As long as people drink or get high and get behind the wheel of a car, there is a reason for some laws against the use of substances.

However, it is long past time to legalize and regulate the use of other controlled substances. Marijuana does very little harm, and has real medical uses.

Our society is consuming itself and its economic output with a futile "drug war" that will have no end, but which like the Iraq fiasco also creates huge vested interests - people who profit from it. We don't need all the "private contractor" companies (who now outnumber our troops in Iraq) to do our government's work, and we don't need the huge criminal injustice, prison-industrial complex to imprison, stigmatize, and even enslave huge segments of our population at home.

As Chris Powell says the problem isn't parole; it's drug criminalization.

Clifford Wallace Thornton Jr.
Glastonbury


Efficacy
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"THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON"

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