Pubdate: Thu, 05 Jun 1997
Source: Skagit Valley Herald (WA)
Author: R. J. Givens

Lt. Gov. Brad Owen seeks to mortgage the future of our children and
grandchildren by promoting a drug policy that has not succeeded since it
began over 80 years ago. If Owen gets his way, it won't be
long before Washington must forgo building colleges because of drug-war
spending. Money is an issue when it is wasted on dangerous and
ineffective policies that rob our children of their futures.

The drug war is a failure and it is time to try something that works:
namely legalization and regulation. When alcohol was illegal, society
had very little control over distribution, zoning, age limits, purity
and so on. But once alcohol was relegalized, reasonable regulation was
easily enforced.

The difference between a legal market and an illicit black market is
that legal markets can be controlled while illicit ones cannot.

Robin Givens
San Francisco