Ken and Kendall,

    I have mixed thoughts on drug legalization and treatment. The real
"villain" here are the mandatory sentencing guidelines from the Reagan era. People
are doing 20 years for possession of a few ounces of marijuana. They are
letting rapists and murderers out to make room for the drug dealers!! This is
absurd. IMHO, marijuana is one of the drugs I would
legalize. Used with no other drugs, even alcohol, marijuana has very few
violent effects.So you may be right in eliminating lawyers from the drug scene.
The private treatment sector is small now and VERY expensive due to the
treatment industry's rape of the insurance companies in the eighties and nineties.
Most treatment is publicly funded, and if you think Medicare is under funded,
look at drug rehab funds! I am, as most of you known, a member of AA. AA does not
take sides on alcohol as far as prohibitions, etc. We try to avoid "outside
issues" and focus on our own spiritual growth. Bobby
I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing some lawyers go out of business.  If drug
abuse were treated as a medical/psychological/social problem, the number of
treatment providers would likely increase.

If the courts weren't so clogged with drug related cases, it wouldn't take
nearly as long for murder cases and the like to come to trial (except for
continuances and delay tactics - see my first comment).  And what percentage of
property crimes are caused by drug deals, and how many violent crimes are caused
by drug deals gone bad?  You're probably right that police chiefs and state
bureau's of criminal investgation wouldn't like to see their drug interdiction
funds cut, but does any state or local level agency like to see it's Federal
funding cut?  I't's probably going to happen to a lot of programs in the next two
years, with Medicaid being at the top of the list.