I must congratulate you. You have come to your senses (I hope) before the other television networks. The American people, when presented with the facts, will be asking some hard questions of the media. The most basic of which: "Why have you [the media] lied to us again and again on the issue of drug use and the War on Drugs"? Recently near Montgomery, Alabama, a small town a woman was arrested for having 45 pounds of pot. The local paper reported the pot worth $4,170,000. Yes I said million. I called the local paper and asked the [Prattville, Alabama, last half of November in The Prattville Progress] person who wrote the article how he got this figure (4.17 mil). He told me that the local Sheriffs Office TOLD him that that was what it was worth. "If you rolled this amount of Marijuana as joints, that there would be 4.17 million joints, at one dollar each". The reporter told me that he did not know a thing about Marijuana so he relied on what the SO's told him. I asked him how many joints he thought he could roll out of 45 pounds of lawn clippings from his back yard and he hung up on me. A small example among many of the rampant distortion of information by law enforcement and media in all it's forms. How do you [media] expect the American Public to take you seriously when you do NOT report reality based on truth and instead put a politically provided slant on what you report? Another example of "slanting" occurred on your newscast this evening (01-25-94). You let a woman from the Midwest voice her opinion in favor of drug legalization then you run a non-sequitor after that. "Well if your gonna legalize drugs you may as well legalize murder". You then run the short bite about the teacher and her informal survey of her class. Kids simply don't have a say in the matter. It is right and correct in my view that kids should be kept away from and educated about ALL substances that can be abused. But you cannot rely on a "survey" of children that is certainly biased against "drugs" by virtue of the "education" they receive about them. More and more it seems that media, who has for many years held a high standard for upholding truth has increasingly abdicated that important responsibility to be able to compete with "tabloid" journalism. Following the "politically correct" line instead of supplying the American People with the actual facts of drug use and abuse and the costs to society brought on by this socio-political/racial prohibition is WRONG. Prohibition is killing people. Prohibition is destroying families. Prohibition is the cause of much of the violence on the streets of America today. Folks who have taken the time to read the studies and look over facts and figures are seeing the lie that is being perpetrated by the Federal Government and the media. The media will surely lose much credibility after the American people find out how media has NOT reported evidential studies and figures pertaining to the present War on Drugs. Focusing on the "politically correct" agenda of the Federal Government that says we must pursue this social prohibition, when studies that have been done throughout the years clearly show that the "dangers" of drug use are a fabrication of the government (and the media), is reprehensible. Tens of thousands of people are losing their families, their property, their civil rights, their right to work because of the "War on Drugs". The record clearly shows that the actual figures, from the Federal Governments OWN studies, do NOT support "drugs" being illegal. Even the DEA holds the position that Marijuana is not addictive nor particularly harmful. But people are still losing their homes and lives and children and liberty because of a PLANT. Over a plant that has killed NO ONE in at least four thousand documented years of use! United States history clearly shows that we have gone down this road before. In addition, history shows that the violence that is associated with a social prohibition simply dries up when the prohibition is removed. The following are just a few "snippets" that are making the rounds on the information highway that already exists. The "Information Super Highway" that the President speaks about tonight will put factual information at the fingertips of an unprecedented number of Americans. If I was in politics I would be scared to death. The American people will have easy, cheap and wide access to information that was formerly available only to news agencies, government and educational institutions and various individuals as well as business. Media AND government will have to explain why so many have been jailed, killed, maimed and otherwise had their lives disrupted because of a social prohibition defies reason. The "War on Drugs" has no validity when the facts are objectively viewed. Hundreds of thousands of people in this country are being hurt by this "War on Drugs" every year. This is in response to a "drug problem" that kills less than 10,000 (abuse NOT use) people a year from all illegal drugs combined. [Excluding Marijuana, which has killed no one during recorded history] Legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco kill more than 500,000 people a year. 490,000 more people die each year from legal "drugs" than illegal "drugs". Breakdown in families? Violence? Trust in politicians? Trust in Law Enforcement? Gangs? Kids with guns? The "War on Drugs" is popularly known as a big lie. How can the American Public "trust" when we know (when provided with objective facts) about these lies? This piece comes from "Cyberspace", it has been spread all over. It nearly mirrors your own "un-scientific survey: ************************* Reprinted From Prodigy Without Permission: Poll Results:12/16/93 53 % SAY LEGALIZING DRUGS MIGHT REDUCE CRIME The poll drew 61,071 respondents--44 % of whom said they had been victimized by drug-related crime. More in this poll sided with Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders' view that legalizing drugs could make America a safer place than with President Clinton, who said the costs would outweigh the benefits. His view was, however, backed by those in his own age group--45 and up. Younger respondents and men and women, as well as respondents from all US regions, are more likely to agree with Dr Elders. The conventional wisdom is that, as President Clinton's immediate rejection of Surgeon General Elders' proposal suggested, the US public is horrified by the idea of legalizing drugs. But this week's PRODIGY Poll results call that view into question: Dr Elders, in 'telling it like it is,' got a slight majority agreeing with her proposal--a majority that may have been boosted by admirers of her no-nonsense style. More conclusively, with 61 % saying the subject is worthy of more debate, it looks as if it has now become thinkable to rethink US drug policy. * Support for Dr Elders is not uniformly strong across the country: While 58 % on the West Coast and 55 % in the Northeast back her suggestion, the vote split more evenly in the South and Midwest. In those areas, 49 % backed Elders, but Clinton won 46 % of the Southern and 47 % of the Midwest vote. * Legal drugs would, apparently, be firmly opposed by 1/3d of respondents: Of the 34 % who do not think the subject worth debating, 90 % agree with President Clinton that the costs of doing so would outweigh the benefits. Poll results also suggest that it is an overall climate of fear of violence and crime rather than direct experience with drug-related crime that most accounts for support for Dr Elders' proposal. That is, having been a victim of drug crime increases support for Dr Elders by only 5 percentage points: Among those directly affected by drug-related crime, 55 % support Elders, but so do 50 % of those who have not had such an experience. Victims are, however, more likely--by 56 % to 44 %--than non-victims to hold that drugs are a primary source of crime. Copyright 1993 Prodigy Services Company. All Rights Reserved. ************************* Next we have a "snapshot" of how "drugs" got to be illegal in the first place. This note was posted in an Internet Newsgroup in response to a KOMO sponsored town meeting in Washington State: Ken Schram Town Meeting 100 Fourth Avenue North Seattle, WA 98109-4997 Dear Ken Schram, I want to thank you for having the Town Meeting about whether the legalization of currently-illegal-drugs would stop the escalating violence and murder we are seeing in this country. The answer is obvious if you just take a look at history. The only other time in our country's history that we have had gang violence, drive-by shootings, pushers in the schools, clogged courts, and overcrowded prisons like we have today was during alcohol prohibition. During Prohibition bootlegging was so bad in some schools that they had no choice but to actually close the schools down. During Prohibition the courts were so clogged that they had to resort to what they called "Bargain Days" where they would haul all of the current Prohibition offenders into the court room and offer them a deal that if they all pled guilty they would all be released, en masse, with only a small fine each. This was such an embarrassment for the prohibitionists that President Hoover formed the Wickersham Commission to find a solution for the clogged court problem. After a year of studying the issue the Wickersham Commission concluded that the only way to unclog the courts would be to have trials without juries for Prohibition offenses. Fortunately enough Americans of that time cared about the Constitution to soundly reject this prospect. That is more than can be said about Americans today. Today Congress routinely passes more and more unconstitutional laws in the name of fighting the "Drug War" and we Americans meekly allow it to happen. Drugs are obviously not the cause of the violence we see today. During the 1920's gangs were shooting each other over beer. You should read about the Chicago Beer Wars. It sounds funny, but its not. Gangs were killing themselves (and innocent citizen bystanders) over beer. Picture the police busting down somebody's door, throwing fathers, mothers, and children to the floor at gun point and arresting them for possession of Miller Light. That is how absurd the swat team led Neo-Prohibitionists ("Drug Warriors") are now, but few people object. Why? To understand this you have to look at where these anti-drug laws came from. We have grown up with them and the feeling is that, "They have always been here." But they haven't. To understand what things would be like if drugs were re- legalized we just need to look at what the country was like before these laws were passed. Unlike alcohol prohibition the anti-drug laws did not come from a public outcry against drugs. The original anti-drug laws were pushed through congress with little fanfare by a small group of people and for unsavory reasons. ALL OF THEM were passed out of racism. The laws against opium were passed to get the Chinese. The laws against cocaine were passed to get the blacks (It was widely known that the black jazz musicians used cocaine. The first Drug Czar, Harry Anslinger, hated jazz music and feared its influence on America much like parents of the 60's generation children hated Rock-And-Roll music.). The campaign against "marijuana" was the most obviously racist campaign. Cannabis was commonly known since the days of the Founding Fathers in this country as "hemp". George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and most of the founding grew marijuana, thousands of acres of the stuff. The psychoactive properties of hemp were widely known from Washington and Jefferson's time and was certainly known by Anslinger. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report, a British investigation into whether or not "hemp" posed any significant social problems was published in 1894 and the Panama Canal Zone Military Investigations were conducted by the American military from 1916 through 1929. Both concluded that hemp smoking posed no significant social problems. So before Anslinger launched his campaign against "marijuana" in the early 1930's he knew "marijuana" was hemp. Why did he call it "marijuana"? The answer is obvious. The Mexican immigrants in the southwestern states called hemp "marijuana" and Anslinger wanted to use the racist, anti-Mexican sentiments of the time to try to create a picture of a foreign menace, "marijuana", that was invading our society. Anslinger had a lot to lose if he did not create a new demon to take the place of "Demon Rum". Alcohol prohibition ended in 1933. If Anslinger could not successfully invent another demon to take the place of alcohol he would have been out of a job But Anslinger kept his job thanks to his skill at fanning the flames of hatred. He was a mastermind at playing on the fears of people. At first the repercussions of these laws were not felt by white Americans so there was no legislative opposition to the laws. It wasn't until the 1960's when young white kids, the daughters and sons of white doctors, lawyers and congressmen, started getting caught in the Neo- Prohibition machine that white America started to take notice of these laws. Before the 1960's they didn't even notice them. That is how the current anti-drug laws snuck up on us. They began as racist laws and even today continue to be so. Although black Americans are only 12 to 15 percent of the users of illegal drugs, 48 percent of those arrested on drug charges are black. From 75 to 80 percent of drug users are white, but in a comparison of arrestees in New York it was shown that less than 10 percent of the white arrestees were sentenced to prison. I would like to propose another Town Meeting asking the question, "Are The Anti- Drug Laws Based On Racism?" This would address the current racially imbalanced enforcement policies and it would also educate the public as to where the laws came from. The only way we are going to be able to make a wise decision on what to do is if we know all the facts about these laws. Before these laws were put into effect we had a peaceful society. What these prohibition laws have done is destroy our trust in our law enforcement community, make billionaires out of thugs, and engulf our country in a civil war fought on the same terms as the Vietnam war. But this time the innocent victims caught in the crossfire are not Vietnamese peasants. They are our families, friends and children. Sincerely, [name with held] -- ** The Drug War is the Vietnam of the 90's. ** ===================== *** It is a guerrilla war waged by our *** | END THE DRUG WAR! ** government against its own people. ** ===================== ************************* The Internet is as good as place as any to get a firm grounding in what the truth is about "drugs and drug use". Notice I don't say abuse. Like anything else there are people who "abuse" subtances. For the most part, alcohol and tobacco are the most "abused drugs" today. These are two different things and people who spend a little time educating themselves can tell the difference. There are many storage sites where a wealth of factual information can be found that has not been "tainted" by the Federal "line" or the "whitewash" the media gives the American Public. It is clear to anyone who can reach this information what the facts are. The statistics are clearly showing that the War on Drugs seems to be an excellent way to discriminate on minorities. Jocelyn Elders stated that a Black American is 14 times more likely to spend time in prison for a "drug" offense. The War on Drugs is shameful. It is costly. It is dicriminatory. It can't be won. Honest, unbiased, objective information will win. The folks who continue to bury their heads in the sand about this issue and who refuse to relate the facts will have to answer for it. The people who are affected most, minorities and the poor will want answers from the government and the media. There are many, many prominent and respected people who are calling for legalization. The facts support this position. As a large television network you have the power and the responsibility to report the truth. If you take the initiative NBC CAN SAVE LIVES. I beg you, read the governments own studies, report on them. NBC can be instrumental in stopping the violence that is associated with this terrible wrong, "The War on Drugs". In my opinion and many others, if drugs were legalized and available in a well regulated, free market, the violence and the mistrust of government and law enforcement would mostly end. As well as the terrible cost to minorities and poor in this country. I thank you for the opportunity to present my opinions.