This is an article that can probably start some sane discussion here:

Antiquated Drug Laws Cost Us Plenty
By Diane Dimond

Come sit down with me. Let's have a chat - a meaningful and productive
chat. You comfortable, you want some tea?

Here's what I'm thinking. With all this change in the air, this idea that
we really can shake up the status quo and attack our nation's problems from
a different angle - we probably should take a look at our drug laws. Don't
you think?
Remember back in 1969 when President Nixon declared a "War on
Drugs"? We were going to wipe out the illegal drug trade that stopped
so many of us from being productive citizens! Wow, that sure sounded like a
great plan. But, here we are 40 years later and we're still struggling with
what to do about those who either sell or get addicted to illegal drugs.
It's important to make the distinction here. Drug addicts vs. drug dealers.
The first are surely breaking the law but no one aspires to become an
addict, right? They're sick and in need of medical and mental health
attention. The dealers, of course, are felons making loads of money off the
weak. Yet we lock up both groups as if they are the same kind of criminals.
That doesn't seem right.
Now, I don't want to make this a political conversation, you know,
Democrats vs. Republicans, liberal vs. conservative. I want to talk about
what's best for our country, our economically strapped country.

Since that "War on Drugs" declaration we've gone way past the
billion dollar mark to somewhere in the trillion dollar area. I read the
other day that it costs us a collective 69 billion dollars each year to
keep up this war. Why do we keep doing the same things over and over if
it's not getting rid of the problem?
It costs society so much in terms of court and prison costs, lost
productivity and damage to families. So sad, isn't it?
We've spent years tinkering with prison rehabilitation for convicted
addicts. There's been no great breakthrough. Maybe we need special
hospitals just for them. I wonder if we could do that for less than 69
billion a year? As for the drug dealers, well, we keep slapping them with
mandatory and harsh sentences and as fast as we lock 'em up there are more
arrested every day. Our prisons are bursting at the seams!
We've got a federal Drug Enforcement Administration and each state has a
drug task force, and local law enforcement has undercover operations to try
to smoke out the bad guys. Drugs continue to stream across our borders,
mostly from Mexico but also from Canada. Countless homegrown drug labs dot
the country's landscape. The problem never seems to end. We don't have a
handle on it - it has a handle on us!
You know, there's a group of 11 thousand law enforcement types, called
L.E.A.P, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, that says if we just
legalized all drugs the massive profit margin would disappear. They liken
it to 1933 when the prohibition on booze stopped and put Al Capone out of
the bootlegging business. L.E.A.P. thinks drug kingpins would find the
government taxes and regulations so stiff they'd just fold their tents.
I'll have to have another cup of tea and think about that. I don't think
I'm for legalizing all drugs. But, it sure would be a tempting new tax
revenue stream, wouldn't it?
Look, I don't pretend to be smart enough to figure out the whole big
national drug problem but, you know, we've got to start somewhere. I've
been thinking that one way to cut down our costs is to weed out (pardon the
pun) those 872,720 Americans who the FBI says were arrested for marijuana
in 2007. There might have been a million marijuana arrests last year - the
figures aren't in yet.
I mean who are we kidding? Millions of Americans admit they've smoked
grass, ganja, pot - whatever you want to call it - including at least two
of our Presidents, CEO's of top companies, Olympic athletes and countless
other productive members of our society. Spending all this money to arrest
and prosecute these cases seems to be getting us nowhere. Isn't it weird
that we approve using marijuana for medical purposes but not for those
who'd like to substitute it for a glass of vodka once or twice a week?
Yep, that's what I'm thinkin'. We have to start somewhere and so we might
as well de-criminalize things for all those Americans who, despite the law,
are smoking marijuana anyway.
It sure is nice to be able to chat about this without someone going off
accusing the other of being a kook or a commie or some other name. Want
some more tea?

http://tinyurl.com/om6aqo

-- 
L'Chaim,
Mimi

mgallandt670{at}gmail.com

http://www.myspace.com/fcpnmimi

"Anti-Zionism = Anti-Semitism"
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
". . . You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are
merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high
mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When
people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth.
Antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been
and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full
agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently antisemitic, and
ever will be so..."

Golda Meir once said, "There will never be peace until the
Palestinians love their children more than they hate us."

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