Monday, July 5, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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The Orange County (Calif.) Register editorial “It’s time to end the War on Drugs,” published in the June 25 Sun, was missing a few major points. For one, the war on drugs did not start 50 years ago; it started shortly after Prohibition ended. Most drugs illegal now were dispensed by physicians when all other medications were not working.
Opiates were wildly used because they had the best results for pain. From 1920 to 1933, the Volstead Act made it a criminal offense for the possession of alcohol. The Bureau of Prohibition created an army of revenuers to stamp out gangs, mobsters and bootleggers; then when Prohibition ended, it needed another focus for all the people it employed. So, agents were used to root out the narcotics that at the time were still legal.
Johann Hari’s book, “Chasing the Scream,” makes the case that all the war talk is not the answer to an epidemic on addiction. Incarceration has been the answer but not the cause of drug use.
We as citizens need to make sure our legislators help the addicts, not throw them in jail.
