Legalize drugs? Curiously, support can be found in the words of
drug war advocates.

"Corruption among law enforcement agency personnel continues to
be a major impediment to cooperative investigations. Law enforcement
initiatives appear to have had only a slight, if any, impact on drug
transportation and distribution organizations..." - Jane C. Maxwell,
Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, June 1996.

"Historically, prohibitions have not been effective and are always very
costly to support." - City Judge John Roberts, Waco, January 1997.
"At best we will stop 10 percent of all illegal drugs bound for U.S.
soil. The ten percent interdiction rate is supposed to deter the 90 percent
success rate." - Brad Watson, DEA, Heart of Texas Area Drug Task
Force, 1995.

"This is not a war that can be won in a year or so. It's not a battle
where we can achieve total victory." - Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, national
drug czar, 1996.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same old thing over and over
again and expecting a different result." - candidate Bill Clinton, July
1992.

The war on drugs, by definition, is insanity. By their own admission,
drug war advocates are impractical visionaries committed to unsound
strategy.

Year after year, "over and over again," drug war strategists
continue assertions that legalization would be admitting failure.
Changing strategy is not failure. Failure to change unsuccessful
strategy is failure.

Legalization's gains

Legalization is not failure. Legalization is a proven success. For
example, nicotine is a drug with a very high potential for addiction.
In the past 25 years, addictive use of illegal drugs has not changed,
but addictive use of nicotine has been cut in half without sending one
person to prison or vowing to stop the drug at its source.

In the 1500's, many European countries experimented with tobacco
prohibition. Tobacco was illegal and the death penalty was imposed for
mere possession. Tobacco use increased.

The zero tolerance policy for tobacco failed as criminal penalities for
drug use typically do. Americans are quick to recoginize the folly
of forcing legal drugs into the illicit market through prohibition.

One benefit of legalization will include a restricted clinic based
system. Clinics of this nature provide safe treatment for exsisting drug
abusers as well as proven methods of reducing use.

Such a system worked in Shreveport, from 1919 to 1923, and dried up
the illicit market. Crime dropped and many of the addicts were able to
be employed.

Far more accurate data concerning responsible use as well as
addiction will emerge leading to a better understanding of drug use.

Beneficial uses

All drugs have the potential to restore health or remove health
depending on how we use them. For example, for over 20 years
the U.S. Government has been quietly supplying eight Americans with
marijuana to be smoked for medical purposes. These eight Americans
are using marijuana responsibly and many are gainfully employed.

The primary defense against drug abuse is found in individual
responsibility, not in the warmonger mentality of those opposed to
legalization. Resources would be best spent in education and
prevention programs that help our children make the self-motivated
choices necessary in understanding the consequences of drug use.
We can teach our children and ourselves protection from drug abuse.

We cannot protect anyone from the madness inherent in a market
dominated by illegal drug profiteers and war insanity.
Waco resident John Wilson, who says he uses marijuana under a
doctor's recommendation, is active in the effort to legalize
medicinal marijuana.

John F. Wilson