The New York Newsday had a good letter today, in response to a drug warrior’s column recently. It’s from the letters page, but I’ll rerpoduce it here because it may dissappear:

“In “‘Harmless’ Marijuana? Don’t Bet Your Life on It” [Viewpoints, May 3], John P. Walters makes a mistake common to the drug-warriors. He compares the problems of the illegal recreational drug-user to those of his opposite − the abstainer − rather than to those of the legal recreational drug-user.”

“America’s alcohol-advertising tobacco-subsidizing society has declared war on adults using recreational drugs other than the two deadliest to kill the inconvenient pain and unhappiness in the sanctity of their bodies.”

“Our very criminal “justice system” is obviously afraid that non-alcohol/tobacco drugs aren’t harmful enough without the state multiplying their costs from pennies to twenties, from years wasted on Cloud Nine to years wasted in hate-filled TB-ridden prison cages with rapists and murderers, and from zero-to-five days’ withdrawal to lifelong ex-con status in a society that casually excuses its mayors’ and presidents’ “youthful indiscretions” as it drugs millions of schoolchildren daily with Ritalin and other legal prescriptions, then imprisons those youths for “corrupting America’s morals” when they graduate to non-prescribed mood elevators.”

“College students who form friendships and social groupings according to their drug of choice should not “grow up” to encage each other on such an insane basis as America’s drug-warrior policy.”

“- Haig Cedric Timourian Manhattan”