Here's a letter you can use:
* Forwarded (from: NETMAIL).
* Originally from Alex Vasauskas (1:17/75) to president@whitehouse.gov.
* Original dated: Sat Dec 28, 10:13
President Clinton:
I am writing to express my opposition to your efforts in
promoting the current Prohibition, which is more commonly
known as the War on Drugs.  It is unfortunate that a man of
your authority and responsibility is one of those who
continue to prove that the only thing we learn from history
is that we don't learn from history.  You and your peers
have certainly not learned the error of the previous
attempt at prohibition which involved alcoholic beverages:
 "When Prohibition was enacted in 1920, Billy Sunday, the noted
 evangelist and leading crusader against Demon Rum, greeted it as
 follows: "The reign of tears is over.  The slums will soon be
 only a memory. ... Men will walk upright now, women will smile,
 and children will laugh.  Hell will be forever for rent."
 We know now how tragically wrong he was.  New prisons and jails
 had to he built to house the criminals spawned by converting the
 drinking of spirits into a crime against the state.  Prohibition
 undermined respect for the law, corrupted the minions of the law,
 and created a decadent moral climate -- and in the end did not
 stop the consumption of alcohol.
"Tyranny of the Status Quo" by Milton Friedman, Nobel
laureate in economics.  Reprinted, Police News, June 1994.
I do not confuse tolerance and legalization of consensual
"crimes" with approval of conduct.  Instead I recognize that
drug abuse can be harmful.  But, no matter what the harmful
effects of drug abuse or drug use for intoxication might be,
the effects of your Prohibition efforts are much worse.
Along with adulthood come personal, adult prerogatives that
neighbors, the public, and government should have no right or
power to interfere with.  Your ongoing Prohibition efforts
are an affront to adult personal responsibility and prerogatives.
Our nation cannot afford to deny adults the right to make
decisions regarding how to live their personal lives and to
reap the benefits or suffer the detriments of those decisions:
 "If you protect a man from folly,
 you will find you have a nation of fools."
William Penn.
Moreover, as evidenced by your current policy and attempts to
thwart the clear democratic will of voters in California and
Arizona to legalize certain drugs for medicinal use, you
demonstrate an authoritarian attitude and pernicious hostility
toward the democratic will of people who seek to govern themselves
locally in a manner that does not take away from anyone the ability
to chose how to live.  Have you already forgotten that the
government should do the will of the people rather than that
the people should live according to the will of those in
government?
It is obvious that you and many others have made a significant
investment in and are getting a high rate of political return
from maintaining the current Prohibition hysteria.  It is not
surprising that H.L. Mencken observed:  
 "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep
 the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be
 led to safety) by menacing it with an endless
 series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
Even former Secretary of State George Schultz admitted:
  "Legalization would destroy dealers' profits and remove their
  incentive to get young people addicted.  Such a proposal is
  unpopular ... . Sometimes at a ... cocktail party I advance these
  views and people head for somebody else.  Everybody is scared to
  talk about it.  No politician wants to say what I just said, not
  for a minute."
However, I ask you to reevaluate whether the harm to
citizens and the nation that you are promoting and doing is
worth the personal political profit you are getting.
(To elaborate, I am attaching for you a copy of an editorial that
says well what I for the most part too see to be a substantial part
of the harmful effect of your War on Drugs.)
Thank you for your attention,
   /S/
(NAME and ADDRESS)
Attachment:
TO:   Letters to the Editor                          February 15, 1994
FROM: Gary Steinweg
VIA:  Fax/modem
Here's an OP-ED piece that should end the debate on the War on Drugs.
It should, but it won't.  There are no studies or statistics cited,
just facts that we all know, put together in a logical manner, that
exposes the WOD for the self-serving destructive program it has been.
Read on, and publish it or throw it in the trash.  I will be incredu-
lous if it doesn't cause you to think a little more about what's been
going on.  By the way, I've never used drugs.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
THE WAR ON DRUGS!  What HAS it accomplished?  It has resulted in:
- two mega-billion dollar industries, both funded by the American
  public;
- a dramatic increase in violent crime, also at the expense of the
  American public; and
- nullification of the 4th, 5th, 8th and soon the 2nd amendments to
  the original Bill of Rights.
The first mega-billion dollar industry is the production and distri-
bution of illegal drugs.  Profiteers include foreign cartels, traffic-
kers, distributors and pushers.  Income to the least of these partici-
pants greatly exceeds the income of the average American.  Cartel
incomes soar into the billions of untaxed dollars that leave this
country every year.  These exorbitant incomes are a result of the high
prices paid by the drug using segment of the American public.  Simple
supply and demand.  Why such a high price?  Enter the second mega-
billion dollar industry - local, state and federal drug law
enforcement.
Billions of dollars are consumed annually by drug law enforcement
agencies as they track, infiltrate, bust, kill and get killed, in
their action-packed effort to stem the flow of drugs to American drug
users.  The predominant and predictable result of their activity has
been to drive up the cost of drugs which, in turn, makes drug traffic-
king all the more attractive to the supply side of the equation.  It
is, in reality, the activities of drug law enforcement agencies that
creates the wealth for the drug traffickers.  The greater the drug
enforcement effort, the greater the profits to the drug traffickers.
The other predictable result is violent criminal activity as pushers
compete for turf, and drug deals go bad.  Caught up in all this is the
non-using public.  Their homes are broken into, they are robbed on
the street, become accidental victims of drive-by shootings, etc.
All of this because of the high cost of illegal drugs.  To make mat-
ters worse, violent criminals are returned to the streets because the
prisons are filled with non-violent drug users.
What to do about all this drug related crime?  Seizure laws.  For the
"common good," the 4th Amendment to the Bill of Rights has been nulli-
fied.  No longer do Americans enjoy the absolute right to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures.
Since seized property has proved so valuable to enforcement agencies
in times of budget crunches, for the common good, the 5th Amendment
needed to be nullified.  Americans now routinely have their property
seized without due process of law.  They are often not charged with
any crime because there was no crime, and to make them have to initi-
ate civil action to get their property back, usually without the funds
to do so.
Because the booty of seizure is so attractive, law enforcement
agencies often appear to be more interested in how much can be seized
than in winning the war on drugs.  Smoke marijuana, lose your car, or
lose your house, or lose your entire estate.  For the common good, the
8th Amendment protection against excessive fines had to be nullified.
Under the guise of the war on drugs, innocent Americans and harmless
drug users are losing their lives, liberty and Constitutional rights
at an alarming rate.  This is how tyranny starts.
WHAT HASN'T THE WAR ON DRUGS ACCOMPLISHED?
    -  It hasn't reduced the availability of drugs.  Although tons of
       illegal drugs are captured each year, everything the using
       public desires is there for their purchase.
    -  It hasn't reduced the usage of drugs.  More people than ever
       before are using drugs.
    -  It hasn't made America a safer place to live.  Violence,
       burglary and robbery have increased dramatically as a direct
       result of the profits to be made in drug trafficking, and the
       high cost of illegal drugs.
    -  It hasn't instilled a greater confidence in law enforcement
       agencies.  More and more we hear of INNOCENT people being shot
       out of control officers as they mount their assaults on wrong
       addresses.  On top of that, there've been instances of
       government agencies trafficking in drugs themselves to fund
       various projects that Congress is unwilling to fund or that are
       illegal.
SO WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON?
The Bill of Rights was included in the Constitution to preclude the
Government from becoming all powerful.  Our founding fathers
recognized that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts
absolutely.
I've now concluded that the war on drugs is a sham who's real objec-
tive is unlimited government power and the elimination of the Bill of
Rights.  The war on drugs has created crime where no crime would
otherwise exist. Then, because of the extent of the "problem", we
seemed willing, no honored, to give up our right to protection from
illegal seizure, due process and trial by jury. After all, we didn't
think it was our rights that we were nullifying at the time, we were
sure it was someone else's.  It has filled our prisons with non-
violent offenders causing the early release of violent felons so they
can continue to wreak havoc and cause us to beg for more gun control
and a police state.
The war on drugs has created firearm violence where no violence should
exist.  Since said violence is becoming such a problem, we will soon
be only to glad to nullify our neighbor's 2nd Amendment right.
Because several million honest citizens won't accept this, they too
will become instant criminals, and, for refusing to turn in their
weapons, more lives will be lost and their property will be seized.
What is even more terrifying than this nullification of rights and the
danger innocent citizens now face as a result, is our duped approval
thereof.  If we were getting something in return for surrendering our
rights, it might make some sense - but we're not.  Total government
control of every aspect of our lives, including how we are to think
appears to be irreversible and accelerating.  Can we regain the lost
rights our founding fathers held so dear?  If we can't, we'll lose the
rest.  I think we're going to find out real soon.
What do I suggest?
Stop the war on drugs.  Cold.  This will reduce the cost of drugs to
that of a cigarette or a cup of coffee.  It will put the cartels out
of business.  It will put the dealers out of business. It will put the
pushers out of business.  It will slow our accelerating descent into a
totalitarian police state.
Don't I care about the harmful affects drugs can have on individuals?
NO! But even if I did, it wouldn't be a factor because our war on
drugs, as I have pointed out in very simple and easily observable
terms, has done NOTHING to reduce drug usage.  There are even drugs in
prison.
  - Crack babies?  We already have them.  There won't be that many
    more.
  - Drugged crazies?  Eliminate them when they harm or attempt to harm
    others.
  - Neglected children?  We already have them.  Always have.  Always
    will.
  - Druggies unable to hold a job?  Worthless people will always be
    with us.
  - Druggies crashing cars into innocent people?  Not as much as
    alcohol.
The question is, are you willing to throw out the Bill of Rights for
this war on drugs?  That's what we're doing.  Step by step by step.
It's the finest example of an entire population who, convinced they're
the very flower of civilization, were duped into throwing away their
birthright for a cause that was foisted upon them and never was
supposed to be winnable.
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