Letters: Feb. 15, 2018

History lesson

Frank Watson should open his history book. He's upset that states are in rebellion against the federal prohibition. Does he disapprove of the Tenth Amendment, States' Rights?

He's disturbed by the high rate of black market drug deaths, by the appearance of supervised injection sites, and the notion that drugs are trending toward legalization. (Safe Injection Sites, 2-8-18) His misguided fears cry out for a much needed history lesson.

I intend to show that the elevated rate of addictions, and the elevated rate of black market drug deaths, are caused by prohibition. Reduced drug use and reduced drug deaths will only be achieved by returning the drug customer to the pharmacy.

FIRST, let's look at the British "system," versus the American prohibition.

From 1914 onward, as the Treasury Department was ramping up its self-serving prohibition, the American Medical Association was showing itself to be a bunch of wimps, allowing its members to be fined and imprisoned. The American Bar Association didn't cover itself with any glory, either.

In fine contrast, the Brits' Royal College of Physicians were showing excellent bottom. When the cops tried to slide between the British doctor and his patient, they were flicked aside. Baron Humphrey Rolleston's committee reported in 1926 that addiction is a medical issue; not a place for coppers to play. The "British System" was just traditional medicine: each doctor must deal with his own patient's condition of addiction, as he saw fit.

In America, doctors were languishing in federal prison, and their patients were "being run to ground in a nationwide game of fox and hounds." (Mike Gray, Drug Crazy, 1998, p. 155)

Drugs acquired an allure to the rebellious, the immature; "astronomical" profits motivated the pusher; availability was wide open -- the black market has no restrictions as to time, place, or age. By 1965, "there were probably 20,000 addicts in Manhattan, alone." (Gray)

Meanwhile, an Englishman could go to his family doctor, then to the corner pharmacy. The addict population was still mostly "little old ladies, self-medicating doctors, chronic pain sufferers, ne'er-do-wells -- most of them leading otherwise normal lives.

Then, in 1965, the British addict population doubled from 700 to 1400. Only 1400 in the whole of England! The newbies were long haired rebels with "unsatisfactory work records."

Eye-opening contrast, isn't it?

America was sinking deeper into addiction and crime, under a corrupt, profiteering government. Britain was skimming along lightly, under the care of the family physician.

Unfortunately, the Brits were startled by the style of these 700 new addicts, and turned to the USA for advice and guidance. They lost their way. They followed a loser into deepening addiction and crime. Prohibition was the wrong move. Today there are 165,000 Brits in rehab; out of how many addicts, total? Wrong move!

Brits will be freed, once they return to traditional medicine -- the so-called "British System."

Americans will be freed when we return to our successful policy of 1900-1914: open access to the pharmacy. No advertising.

With the hard eyes of a terrible and free people, let's look for the best policy.

Britain's Margaret Thatcher mandated that practices be studied to see which were most effective. Consultant Psychiatrist John Marks hired an academic to study the clinic's unwanted addiction program.

The study found that prescribing clean drugs cut crime, cut deaths -- and! -- there was a "decline in the number of new users." (Mike Gray, Drug Crazy, 1998, p. 155)

Prescribing clean drugs for addicts "seemed to prevent the spread of addiction." That was too unexpected. They thought they must have designed the study wrongly. But when they scanned official statistics from England, America, and other countries, they "found identical results: if you loosened up a little bit on drug issues, you actually got a fall in the incidence of [new] addiction[s]. But if you loosened up too much, and made it freely available like we now have with alcohol, it started to rise again."

"Free markets promote use; prohibitions peddle use." And so we learn that the least use of drugs is found where availability is restricted, and no advertising.

Let's go there.

From our own history, we know this to be true. In America, drug addictions peaked around 1900, then declined steadily each year until drug prohibition in 1914, which caused an increase in new addictions, bringing us to the outsized problem we have today.

Let's go back to our successful old policy:

Restrict drug sales to the pharmacy -- no advertising. Here's a hard fact: pharmacies were selling by mail order, over the counter, and filling doctors' prescriptions -- all while addictions were declining steadily. People had become aware of addiction. People have common sense.

It used to be illegal for the pharmaceutical industry to advertise directly to the consumer. Their lobbyists have freed them from that law. Let's put the collar back on them. No advertising.

No advertising for that drug alcohol, either.

Wiley

Hollingsworth,

Pullman

English

It is unfortunate that Teddy Roosevelt didn't act on his idea of having congress declare that English would be the official language of our Republic. We need to look at some of the problems that we would probably not be faced with.

We would not have 25 million residents who can't speak English and we wouldn't have 5 million school-aged children who can't speak English. We would not have 329 languages that are spoken in our country that must be used because of Mr. Clinton's E.O. 13166. We would not have a constant fight with La Raza that was formed in 1968. It took 15 years before U.S. English Inc. was formed to try and slow the progress that La Raza was making! La Raza has tried to get congress to approve a bill that would make it illegal for English to be our official language.

Recent polls show that 92 percent of our population speaks English and 82 percent believe that English should be a requirement to become a citizen of the U.S.!

Gerald Ray,

Spokane

Barnum validation

The person in the White House is, without a doubt, a want-to-be despot. He insults our allies, but kisses Putin's anus any time he gets a chance.

Those who voted for that lying son of a gun certainly proved what P.T. Barnum said:

"There's a sucker born every minute."

I pray that God will save the United States of America-and all it stands for. Hopefully this creature who actually wants to be the U.S. equivalent of Putin will be gone soon or at least made impotent. November can't come soon enough.

Richard Stanton,

Colfax