Monday, November 9, 2009

LTE: Police pursuits and the drug war

The following Letter to the Editor was submitted by LEAP speaker James E. Gierach to the Chicago Sun-Times:

Valerie Davis, the 42-year-old woman killed this week in a cops-chase-drug-suspect scenario, would be alive today if drugs were legalized, controlled and regulated. And the drug suspect, now a murder suspect, would have been doing something else for a living, if drugs were legalized. (“Drugs suspects fleeing cops ram into car; woman killed,” Chicago Sun-Times, 11/4/09) Also a drug agent’s bullet fired in the excitement of the chase would not have risked killing innocent bystanders in the Washington Park neighborhood. In sum, drug agents escalated a drug-prohibition violation into the death of an innocent motorist that could have been anyone of us.

If drugs were legalized, some of the drug agents involved in this botched drug-enforcement operation could get a job making something and constructively contributing to American society and gross domestic product. Instead a woman is dead, needlessly, and some drug buyers will be momentarily inconvenienced as they switch drug dealers. A drug suspect will likely go to prison for murder. The taxpayers will get the bill, and Valerie’s relatives get to cry.

Truly – wasteful, counter-productive, deadly, expensive and futile folly. But that’s the drug war in a nutshell.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent letter to the editor. Now we have two more black males locked up and cops believing they've done the right thing.

    Prohibition becomes more ludicrous with every passing moment.

    ReplyDelete

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