Flash back to 2004. The war in Iraq is going strong. As with all wars, mistakes have been made. Nearly 900 American military are killed that year. We frequently read about our fallen in the newspapers, usually front page billing. Michigan's Governor Granholm and others insist that all state government flags be lowered to salute the fallen. We are bombarded daily with criticisms of the president over the loss of lives and the high costs.
In that same year, 19,838 Americans, many younger than the military people lost in Iraq, have died in this country from drug related deaths. There are no weekly front page articles of outrage, no demands for accountability. There are no lowered flags. There is no criticism of the governors of those states nor their senators for their failures to stop loss of lives.
In Michigan alone that year, there were 418 drug related deaths. That is half the total number of military personnel lost in the war. Again, there are no daily comments in the paper. There are no lowered flags. There is no front page criticism in the papers for the failures of our state and local government for failing these young people.
The total economic cost to the American people for drug and alcohol abuse runs in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually! Half of that cost goes for drug related crimes on our streets, not Iraqi streets. Silence in the media. Again, there is no outrage, no public outcries for accountability for failed policies.
My point is, with all these losses of American lives here at home and the huge cost to the American taxpayers to fight the war on drugs, wouldn’t it be best to surrender to the drug dealers and enter into a comprehensive dialogue with them? We could draw down our DEA units in an organized fashion to deter chaos on the street corners and leave a token DEA unit behind to monitor activities.