UP AGAINST THE WEAL

Never in the history of this nation has any policy been as detrimental
to our professed love of liberty and our democratic process as the War
On (some) Drugs. From corruption of our nation's community police
agencies to the death of innocents (not just from gang-warfare
crossfire, but in wrong-address drug raids), the cost of continued
prohibition will prove fatal to our freedoms and the Constitution
protecting them.

When the U.S. has gone from a global champion of freedom to the most
imprisoned nation on Earth, it is heartening to see law-enforcement
officials joining the voices of opposition to the drug war.

Hopefully, our newspapers will soon join the clamor against a policy
that has become, truthfully and sadly, the front line of creeping
fascism in the former land of the free.

Allan Erickson, Drug Policy Forum of Oregon, Eugene, Ore.