Pubdate: Tue, 28 May 2002
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Copyright: 2002 The Register-Guard
Contact:  http://www.registerguard.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/362
Author: Terry D. Blaney
Note: There is an action oriented e-mail discussion list for Oregon which 
has a sign-up page at http://www.drugsense.org/dpfor
Bookmarks: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Oregon, 
http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n866/a05.html

END WAR ON DRUGS

Re the "Meth menace" (Register-Guard, May 5): That meth use is on the rise 
is an indictment of the insane war on drugs. We have been fighting this war 
for 20 years now; our prisons are bulging with drug dissidents. Make no 
mistake, they are dissidents who only choose to put something different in 
their bodies than we do ours. This is why prohibition doesn't work. No one 
is going to tell me what I cannot put in my own body!

Truly, Congress should not have declared war on its own people or on a 
substance. And, having done something so ignorant and unethical, we the 
people must suffer with all of the crime and violence in our streets and 
homes, with tragic consequences for some. The writers of the Constitution 
simply didn't foresee war being declared on people and things within our 
own borders.

Jesse Estabrook, described in the May 5 articles, was a victim of 
unfortunate circumstances. This confused 18-year-old wound up in the back 
of a patrol car with 200 times a lethal dose of meth in his pockets. 
Congress, in the late 1980s, passed sentencing guidelines on this and other 
drugs. Poor Jesse was looking at years in prison. So he disposed of the 
lethal dose. Non-lethal doses can be sold at liquor stores, generating tax 
dollars for a government that is bankrupting us!

The police were only doing their jobs. It is the unethical representatives 
in Washington, D.C., that we need to hold accountable for the tragic times 
at hand.

Don't you see? We are going against the laws for supply and demand. Those 
are God's laws. So, we truly are in conflict with God! There never has been 
a drug-free America, and there never will be! One has to wonder about those 
who set unachievable goals.

TERRY D. BLANEY

Eugene
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens