‘Don’t Give Up on Drug Users’
When will the public and our government realize that just as people have the right to decide whether they want to smoke tobacco or not, addictive and destructive though it may be, they also have the right to choose whether or not they use drugs. The surgeon general has now put nicotine in the same category as heroine. Tobacco will never be banned because it would work about as well as Prohibition did--why can’t we all admit that legislation against drugs is working just as badly?
You can’t legislate human behavior.
Legislation against drugs automatically criminalizes a large percentage of the population, many of whom are not considered criminals in any sense other than that they choose to use drugs.
Why not take the power of drugs and drug sales away from the gangs rather than handing it over to them?
We obviously have a nationwide problem with the overcrowding of jails. Why not relieve some of that problem with half-way houses and hospitalization?
Instead of a war against drugs, why not make this a fight for the people?
CARRINGTON McDUFFIE
Venice
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