Legalize Drugs and Help Abusers

The war on drugs will never be won. We are wasting valuable resources, restricting constitutional freedoms and inundating our prisons in the our effort to combat drug use. By making drug use illegal, we have created a “Prohibition” atmosphere with an increase in crime.

The biggest drug problem in the United States is not with marijuana, heroin, amphetamines or barbiturates. It is with alcohol abuse. The government wants us to believe that alcohol is not a drug, but it is a narcotic that dulls the senses, induces sleep and becomes addictive with prolonged use. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, drunken drivers kill someone in America every 32 minutes. Should we therefore prohibit alcohol consumption again? Of course not, because there are many more responsible drinkers than there are abusers.

Instead we now treat alcohol abuse as a medical or psychological problem, and we pass laws that restrict when and where people may drink. I believe all drugs should fall in the same classification as alcohol, and we should end the war on drugs.

Instead of incarcerating drug abusers, we should treat them the same as we do alcohol abusers and help them to lead normal lives in society. There are many responsible people who can and do use drugs recreationally without any harmful effect to themselves or to society. There are religious sects who use peyote, marijuana and mushrooms without becoming helpless addicts. And the Netherlands has proved that decriminalization of drug use does not cause a collapse of society nor an increase in crime.

I am not an advocate of drug use. In fact, I believe there are many harmful drugs that nobody should become involved with. But I am against laws that make drug use a crime instead of a problem. Let us start a drug education campaign that uses facts rather than propaganda and grant amnesty to all prisoners of the drug war.