OUR CURRENT DRUG POLICY IS THE REAL DISASTER FOR OUR CHILDREN

I am responding to the article in "My Word" by Ivy Cohen,
President of Just Say No International, entitled "Legalizing drugs
would be a disaster for our children."

Ms. Cohen has used the favorite ploy of prohibitionists around the
world. Stating that we must continue our "War on Drugs" in order
to "save our children" sounds reasonable and kind. It is, in fact, this
very tactic coupled with a dogged determination to avoid the truth
and logic by "Just say no" and other do-gooder prohibitionists that
has caused the deaths and misery of thousands if not millions of our
nations children.

Drugs are not our problem. Our drug laws are the problem.

Let's take a look at what our nations children are enduring in the
"wonderful Just Say No" world of today. Less than 5,000 people
die from illicit drug overdose in this country per year. More children
than that die as a direct result of drug related violence brought on by
black market drug dealers. Thousands of kids see our laws flaunted
by street dealing thugs on their way to school every day. No wonder we
are seeing a loss of respect for law and order. Violence among our
youth is rampant.

What about the children of the nearly half million people that are in
prison for non-violent drug crimes? How perfect are their lives? An
inner city child has a slim chance of growing up, getting a good
job, and improving their life. Instead, many inner city youths plan
situation is directly attributable to our insane drug policies.

Ms. Ivy needs to realize that her "Just Say No" theories are abject
failures and are doing much more to harm our children than to
protect them. We have been fighting the "War on Drugs" for over
80 years and at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. Her article
informs us that teen drug use is on the rise. How can any rational
person fail to realize that it is simply impossible to prohibit a desired
commodity in a free society? Is she familiar with what alcohol
prohibition did to this country? What does it take for the
prohibitionists to admit failure and begin looking at rational
alternatives?

Pure logic would dictate that we at least study alternatives, but logic
is the bane of the prohibitionist. Truth is their nemesis. Their only
remaining tactic is to manipulate the populace with their emotional
"what about the children" foolishness.

Anyone who truly cared about the children would be frantically
searching for alternatives to the national embarrassment of our
existing policy. I invite (challenge) Ms. Ivy to visit the worlds largest
library of on line drug information on the Internet at
http://www.druglibrary.org. If she has the gumption, I'll be happy to
debate her on drug policy any time any place. She knows how weak
her position is or she would argue from a logical perspective and not
stoop to emotional subterfuge.

Mark Greer is the author of "The Drug Solution" and the founder
of the Media Awareness Project (MAP) dedicated to honest
accurate media coverage on all aspects of drug policy issues. He has
been interviewed on more than 100 radio and television shows
throughout the nation.