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Disgust at the 'Drug War'

I challenge anyone to read this column by John Tierney and not feel disgust at the disgraceful consequences of the so-called ‘war on drugs.’ (If you don’t feel disgust, then you are emphatically someone with whom I want nothing to do. And I certainly don’t want you to have any role — not even as a voter — in determining how I live my life.)

Tierney visited a 46-year-old prison inmate – a wheel-chair-bound man serving a 25-year sentence in a high-security Florida prison because he had the effrontery to seek relief from excruciating pain caused by an automobile accident that damaged his spinal cord.

I’ll be more precise: this man had the gall to seek pain relief that isn’t government approved.

To all those people who support the ‘war on drugs’, I ask: are the ugliness, the cruelty, and the dangers that you imagine will result from ending the ‘war on drugs’ worse than the actual ugliness, cruelty, and dangers that attend the ‘war on drugs’? I doubt that you can answer an informed ‘yes.’

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