Government needs to stop dictating personal behavior

In reply to Red Chandler’s plea for the death penalty for drug dealers: The death penalty has never deterred any criminals. Even in the good old days when we stretched their necks at the end of a rope, criminals still did their “Bad Guy” thing. The crisis in dope use or misuse was caused by the federal government’s “War on Drugs.” It is a complete failure for exactly the same reason that prohibition was a total failure. Whoever fails to learn from history is bound to repeat it.

Young people naturally tend to question authority. If you tell them that they can’t do something, you can bet the house that they will try it.

And the problem with most narcotics is that you only have to try it once and you’re hooked! By declaring it to be illegal, the federal government drove the price up to the point where it became profitable for criminals to supply the demand.

The only way to solve the problem is to get the federal government the hell out of the business of dictating personal behavior to the people. Abolish the War on Drugs. Then competition of production will drive the price down to where supplying dope is no longer profitable for the criminals. They will have to find other more profitable illegal ways to get money or else they may even turn legal? If people still choose to destroy the dopamine system in their brains by using dope, so be it. It’s their choice. Let them suffer the consequences.

STANLEY R. LENIHAN Somerton