Let’s End the War on Drugs

  I’ve got a confession to make. It embarasses me to say this, but I might as well come clean.

I have never - never - tried drugs, not even marijuana. No, I’m not saying I never inhaled, I never even touched a joint. I’m not bragging, and if I could go back in time, I’d have a little more fun in life, and that includes a toke now and then. But since I never started back then, I see no reason to start now.

My friends and family all know this about me, so they might be shocked at what I’m about to say. I say, let’s end the war on drugs - now. The simplest way to do that is to legalize drugs.

Just think about it for a moment. Legalizing drugs would put the dealers out of business overnight. The crime rate would drop dramatically and immediately. The police could focus their attention on other crimes, and maybe our police departments wouldn’t be perpetually understaffed and our prisons perpetually overcrowded.

I can hear the Blue-Haired Busybodies now: “Legalizing drugs would just encourage young people to try them!” But in countries where drugs are legal, the percentage of addicts isn’t any higher than in countries where they’re illegal. It would be easier to keep tabs on addicts, and perhaps provide them with healthcare and treatment for their addiction that they’re not getting now.

To me, addiction is an illness, and I think it’s wrong to penalize people because they’re sick. There are literally thousands of people in prison today whose crime is no more serious than possession, yet we can’t seem to jail the drug dealers, probably because they’ve got so damned much money. We’re losing the war on drugs, anyway, so let’s hurt them where it hurts the most — right in their Gucci wallets.

What brought on this tirade? The U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled that the huge disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powdered cocaine is unconstitutional. Immediately, people began lauding the decision, saying it’s only fair to sentence crack offenders as severely as powered cocaine offenders. Fine, but I say we take it a step further and legalize both kinds of cocaine, plus all the other illegal drugs, too.

Legalize it, regulate it and tax it. Make it affordable. Think of the money the government could raise - maybe even enough to fund healthcare for everyone,.improve the entire educational system in every neighborhood, the list is infinite.

We in Savannah have suffered because crack addicts are trying to hustle up enough money to buy a dime rock. Did you know that an estimated 85 percent of street crime is committed by crack addicts? I say, let’s give it to them, so they won’t hurt anyone else.

Legalizing drugs seems like such a logical thing to do, yet it won’t happen (at least not in my lifetime) because this country is far too puritanical in its views. Addiction is seen not just as a crime, but an assault to “decent morals.”

Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox now, but legalization would solve a lot of problems and garner a lot of revenue. Prohibition doesn’t work, and Americans of all people should know that. Once prohibition was repealed, the world didn’t suddently dissolve into moral decay.

And as far as educating our children about drugs, sex and anything else that can hurt them, we’ve still got a long way to go. But a field trip to show them a real crack addict and the effects of this insidious drug might do more good than a pretty little picture book in the classroom.

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