Arizona Republic – Published LTE: Drug prohibition kills the innocent – February 22, 2011

 Regarding the article on Thursday, “Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne: Mexican cartels an ‘escalating threat’ to U.S.”: Speaking as a retired detective who fought in the trenches of the drug war, I know that this modern drug prohibition has been a spectacular, trillion-dollar failed public policy. We certainly know from our experience in 1933 that, to destroy the Mexican cartels, we simply need to repeal drug prohibition. Horne’s call for a “massive new education campaign to teach drug users about the cartels” is a solution? You have to be kidding me. That was tried after 9/11 and was a colossal failure. Drug users know full well that it is prohibition that causes money to flow to Osama bin Laden.

 I challenge Horne to put pen to paper and tell us all the advantages and positive outcomes of drug prohibition. Something that says the disaster and suffering of Mexico is worthwhile. – Howard Wooldridge, Tucson