Pubdate: Sun, 17 Nov 2002
Source: Post and Courier, The (Charleston, SC)
Copyright: 2002 Evening Post Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.charleston.net/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/567
Author: Emmette Boone

DRUG LAWS ARE PROBLEM

The Charleston area has seen scores of heavily armed federal, local and 
state police raiding local neighborhoods. An editorial several months ago 
claimed that communities "will no longer submissively yield to the drug 
menace." Officials proudly thump their chests as heavily armed assault 
teams raid populated neighborhoods.

Government created the drug problem. Government ensured the illegal drug 
trade would take root in our poorer neighborhoods. Now government sends 
armed troops into our neighborhoods to liberate us from a problem of its 
making. Our drug laws are the problem. Laws prohibiting the sale and 
distribution of a product ensure that the criminal element will be the sole 
source for the manufacture, distribution and sale of that product, whether 
that product be the prohibited alcohol of 1919 to 1933 or the recreational 
drugs of today. Jails would be less populated, more money would be 
available for treatment programs, a more responsible citizenry would be 
involved in the manufacture and distribution trade, and our poorer 
neighborhoods would be less crime ridden if the current drug laws were 
repealed as the 21st Amendment repealed the prohibition of alcohol in 1933.

Emmette Boone

Ladson
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens