Topic: Here’s something to bring you cheer this Christmas Season 2006… 

Since the start of America’s War on Drugs, millions of addicts, sellers. and producers have been arrested or killed. Trillions in tax dollars have been spent. Our police have become militarized, and our politicians have become hardened to the many tragedies resulting thereof. The body count is immeasurable.

But what has this war wrought upon our society?

First, it guarantees a high crime rate. When the only people who have access to illegal substances are criminals, crime thrives. Gangs do not go to war over turf so much as they battle over drug trade profits.

Second, it allows criminal organizations a supply-side monopoly, and guarantees their exorbitant profits on substances that are otherwise inexpensive to produce. No matter the percentage of their shipments seized by authorities, they continue to live, and live well, off the suffering of others.

Third, it allows and encourages the "gateway" effect, by putting users of drugs such as marijuana in constant and frequent contact with the criminal supply chain, easing their movement from soft to hard drugs via sellers eager to hook a new steady client.

Fourth, only the sellers have control and knowledge of the purity of their substances, continuing the threat of overdose among addicts.

Fifth, as with any war, propaganda thrives. It hardens the people and their leaders against conducting any truly open and honest research into the matter. One must only watch the film Reefer Madness or take in today’s government-sponsored "My Anti-Drug" advertisements to grasp this.

Sixth, even responsible, private, non-addict users of who do no physical harm to others are criminalized. Their arrests stigmatize them to the point where re-entry into society is almost a lost cause.

Seventh, this prohibition has tainted many other keystone laws in American society, such as the Fourth Amendment, which protects the people from unreasonable search and seizure. Police, through nothing more than good intention, trample the edges of the Constitution to make a bust; all in the name of public safety.

Eighth, it guarantees the continued alienation of society’s youth from their neighborhood protectors. Though many officers are upstanding, moral members of their communities, as long as record numbers of young individuals are wasting away behind bars for what many youths see as a non-crime, society becomes increasingly radicalized against law enforcement.

Ninth, it continues to drain the national treasury of vast sums of tax dollars in what is increasingly being seen as a losing battle. Over $69 billion was spent on the war just last year. The federal government has spent less money revitalizing the American Fulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Since its outset, the War on Drugs has cost the American taxpayer more than any war ever launched.

Tenth, with such vast sums of money changing hands, it promises the continued corruption of a small cross-section of law enforcement officials and policy makers. The private prison industry lobbies in favor of mandatory minimum sentences for every drug conviction, no matter how minor. Given the spread of lobbyist-related corruption in the current American Congress, one can only imagine how tolerant the realm of bureaucrats must be to the greasing of palms.

Truly, it is crime this society battles. It is a safer neighborhood we desire. It is the protection of our children we seek. For what, if any, is the benefit of continuing down a path that has only wrought more crime, corruption, and death than any path we have traversed before?

As Albert Einstein once said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results."

It is time to take control of the War on Drugs. It is time to take control of the supply of drugs. It is time to rip the legs right out from under The Mob, wipe out their markets, decimate their profits and throw the dangerous criminals away like so much trash. In doing this, our society would be safeguarding those who would be their victims: our children. We would cease tearing apart families and destroying otherwise innocent lives. Addiction would subside, but not vanish. Savings in tax dollars aside, America would be taking a bold, needed step towards establishing a true "culture of life."

Today, it is easier for our young sons and daughters to purchase methamphetamine than tobacco. If the clerk at 7-11 says no to the sale of a case of beer, what is to stop your child from simply walking behind the store and purchasing an eight-ball of cocaine? The answer: absolutely nothing.

For the sake of our children, society  [ send green star]