Newshawk: Published Letters Awards www.mapinc.org/lteaward.htm
ALMOST RIGHT ABOUT DRUGS
Re: “Mexico’s Sounds of Silence – No news is bad news when media self-censors,” Thursday Editorials. The Dallas Morning News almost got it right.
The ghastly violence in Mexico is not about drugs.
It’s about money, and we can stop it. Drug cartels don’t have a valuable product.
The drugs they sell are common and plentiful.
All they have and all they are fighting for is an illegal distribution system. There were no beheadings during most of the history of Mexico and the U.S., when any man, woman or child could buy these products easily, cheaply and legally.
No journalists are murdered today by the distributors of the most popular Mexican drugs, beer and tequila. U.S. drug prohibition laws allowed this untenable situation to develop.
Doing prohibition harder and harder and hoping for a different result will not stop it. The violence will cease when U.S. laws allow competition from well-regulated, legal sellers to put the cartels out
of business.
Suzanne Wills, Drug Policy Forum of Texas, Dallas
Pubdate: Sun, 8 Aug 2010
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n000/a031.html