Drug laws are all about making money

Regarding your Nov. 21 editorial, yes, drugs are a problem — but why is that? Our drug laws take what should be nothing more than an individual’s medical problem and turn it into a societal legal problem. These laws have not prevented anyone who really wants these drugs from getting them. Not only do they not work but they are actually counterproductive. By being illegal it becomes a forbidden fruit and thus for some enhances their appeal.

Plus, by making them illegal we have just given the drug dealers a monopoly on their sale. Of course, making money is what our drug laws are really all about, from our troops in Afghanistan protecting the poppy fields to the government’s shipping of guns into Mexico so the drug cartels can eliminate their rivals who are not laundering their money through the

proper channels.

Meanwhile, at the local level, the state is allowed to confiscate the drug pushers’ and users’ property. But to do this we need to maintain drug enforcement agencies and prisons to hold all the offenders. Follow all of this money and you will see why proposed changes to our drug laws never get very far. Obviously too many people are making way too much money to allow this apple cart to be over turned. But maybe it is time to ask whether we can really afford to stay on this path.

Richard Gideon

Schaumburg