Reform harmful U.S. drug laws
Regarding your Jan. 11 editorial, drugs did not spawn Mexico’s organized crime networks. Just like alcohol prohibition gave rise to Al Capone, drug prohibition created the violent drug-trafficking organizations blamed for all the killings in Mexico. With alcohol prohibition repealed in the U.S., liquor bootleggers no longer gun each other down in drive-by shootings. It’s worth noting that Mexico’s upsurge in violence only began after an anti-drug crackdown created a power vacuum among competing cartels. From a political perspective, Mexican President Felipe Calderon stands to benefit from the violence.
The drug war is perpetuated by the mainstream media’s complicity in refusing to put so-called “drug-related” crime in context. U.S. politicians have proven particularly adept at confusing the drug war’s collateral damage with drugs themselves. Drug prohibition funds organized crime at home and terrorism abroad, which is then used to justify increased drug war spending. It’s time to end this madness. Whether we like it or not, drugs are here to stay. Changing human nature is not an option. We’ve been trying that for decades. Reforming harmful drug laws, however, is an option, one that Congress should pursue.
ROBERT SHARPE
Policy Analyst
Common Sense
for Drug Policy
Washington, D.C.
Aristocrats reject people’s wishes
“Leave Mr. Bennett and Doonesbury alone for us folks that like to think” (Times Free Press letter, Jan. 8), really?
Once again we are treated to another “enlightened liberal’s” opinion.
What arrogance. It is reminiscent of the aristocracy of old Europe and Mother Russia. Then only those of higher birth were permitted to engage in discourse. Today we are dismissed as unintelligent if we dare disagree.
For many years, we have been indoctrinated by the liberal media that the “common people” must think as our new “aristocratic class” tells us, for only they know what is best.
Just who are these aristocrats who dismiss the wishes of American citizens? They are our elected officials that instead of representing us and our values, vote to fill their’s and their friends’ pockets. They are the “educators” and administrators of our failed educational system who indoctrinate their charges in their own perverted doctrines. They are their idols in Hollywood who can’t manage their own lives but tell us how we should live ours.
JERRY HENDERSON
Cleveland, Tenn.
Bennett cartoon exposes hypocrisy
Re: Clay Bennett’s political cartoon on Jan. 13
A thousand editorial columns could not have exposed the hypocrisy of the GOP concerning racial issues any more than “Genius” Clay Bennett did with one cartoon!
Why do people on the right complain about Clay Bennett’s work? The extreme wing of the right has their own (right-wing) cartoonists.
JEROME WOODALL