| Dear Letters Editor: Prohibition only forces the practice underground and makes it more profitable for the dealers and expensive for the users. The users must then engage in more property crime and prostitution to pay the higher price or seek alternative (legal-for-now) means of medicating themselves. The Romans prohibited tobacco use by their troops under penalty of death. They lost a few soldiers, but didn't stop the use of tobacco. The same is true of coffee, tea, poppy smoking, smoke houses, etc., etc. All have been prohibited at some time for some reason (usually to benefit one merchant over another, e.g. England addicting China and using their military to enforce the trade, or one laborer over another, e.g. whites vs. Chinese, or one producer over another, e.g. cotton/oil vs. hemp). Penalties have ranged from benign to severe. Profit is directly proportional to penalty severity and degree of enforcement. Some people use drugs like LSD or Peyote to ease pain, kill disease or to explore their mind/soul. They generally do not harm themselves or others. That's drug use as distinguished from drug abuse. Generally, 2% of every population attempts to be out of their mind for some period of time for a variety of reasons --the primary one being to improve their mode or perception. Drug abuse is but a symptom of the problem. If not poppy buds, then heroin. If not heroin, then morphine. If not cocaine, then crack. If not glue, then mushrooms. If not mushrooms, then frog skin. Drug abuse is a medical problem, not a police problem. No amount of force will stop drug use or abuse. I am not willing to see all of our freedoms compromised by a futile drug war in an effort to keep a few people from medicating themselves and fewer still from hurting themselves. You can't even keep drugs out of prisons, so how do you expect to keep it out of a country? Stop paying people to push drugs on people, corrupt our judicial system, corrupt the political systems of supplying countries, corrupt our economies and kill innocent bystanders. End all prohibitions of voluntary transactions and mere possession of anything! They're all counter-productive. Sincerely, Bill Holmes, Vice Chair Antelope Valley Libertarian Party P.O. Box 3475 Quartz Hill, California 93586-3475 wtholmes@avlp.org, 661-943-7473 voice/fax http://avlp.org |
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