Stories don’t tell whole drug-war story

I am disappointed to see that the Glendale News-Press continues to support our nation’s failed war on drugs (“Police: Man busted with meth, ill child,” March 7 and “Woman killed crossing Central Avenue,” March 7). Like alcohol prohibition before it, drug prohibition has fueled violent crime.

Our current prohibition has also made it harder for addicts to get treatment and made the U.S. the world leader in incarceration. The true cost of the drug war is easy to find at sources like the Drug Policy Alliance.

But this side of the story is entirely absent in Glendale News-Press reporting. Instead, we get a sensational article about an addict that fails to mention that he might have been cured if we invested in treatment, rather than prisons. The article about the tragic pedestrian death insinuates that the reason she was killed was because the driver was under the influence of marijuana. But the article does not mention how weak the studies are that link marijuana use to unsafe driving, and how those studies were funded by groups that benefit from the war on drugs. Although both articles may be factually correct, it is clear that they chose their facts to support the drug war.

Scott Peer
Glendale