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Drug War Murders Increase
Reno, NV
Friday, March 27, 2009
The War on Drugs that kills people, not the drugs, and this is a real war. It has killed more Americans (700,000), more than all our other wars combined and we are now exporting this murder with almost 7,000 killed in Mexico in 2008 alone. Prison also kills many more people than drugs.
This drug was is not just a failure, it's a fiasco. It's absolutely time to end our devastating and deadly drug war, and stop the collateral damage that includes killing our children, teens and minorities, endless corruption and wasting a trillion and a half dollars. The U.S. has five per cent of the world's population and now uses sixty per cent of the world's drugs, more than the rest of the world combined. And this epidemic is directly due to our drug war. The Rockefeller drug laws opened up the drug market to our teens and we now have a million teens selling drugs. Furthermore, after being arrested for mere possession, ex-felons cannot get any other work, and thus become career dealers. This is how we have created the biggest drug problem in the world, despite having more people in prison than any other country. Then there is the unbelievably catastrophic collateral damage of the drug war. With a million teens now selling drugs, why go to school? Our ten largest cities have drop-out rates of about 50%. In the Netherlands, where drugs are decriminalized, their drop-out rate is eight per cent. That's No Child Left Behind!! Furthermore, our murder rate is four times higher, and even worse, our teenage murder rate is nineteen times higher than in the Netherlands. If this were white teens being killed, this policy would have ended decades ago. And they have no ghettos in the Netherlands. There are some amazing developments in the drug war. The British weekly newspaper The Economist had a cover story in the March 7 issue titled. "How to Stop the Drug Wars" and they strongly supported legalization with four different articles. Also the three former Presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia have all recently stated the obvious: the drug war is over, drugs won, and we need a new approach. Drugs may be bad, but the drug war is infinitely worse. Treatment and education are the only things that have ever proven to reduce drug use and drug demand. Prison unequivocally does not work. Legalization, meaning regulation, control and taxation, is the only answer Stephen H. Frye, M.D.
Retired professor
Reno, NV
775-772-8868
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