Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 14:32:44 -0400
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
Subject: American Antiprohibition League Statement on Terrorism
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 00:05:55 -0700
From: American Antiprohibition League <aal@inetarena.com>
Subject: Stop terrorism at home, end the drug war

    AMERICAN ANTIPROHIBITION LEAGUE

       PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION

       THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2001

  Stop terrorism at home
     End the Drug War

    Portland, Oregon -- To us the central question
which emerges amid the sorrow, horror and anger
over last week's terrorists attacks against the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon is "why?"
What drives otherwise rational, intelligent people
to commit mass-murder, including their own?  Basic
criminal investigations always ask, "who
benefits?"  What was the motive?

    Of course there is no moral justification
whatsoever for these deadly attacks against so
many innocent people.  And yet, while the
singularity, symbolism and scale of the terror
last week was historic; in terms of lives lost,
families broken-up, all the social and economic
disturbance that follows, it still does not match
the long-term damage being done by our own
government, to our own people and people far away.
All in the name of this governments' "holy war"
against drugs, or more accurately, against
America's poor and minority populations.

    Today we have over 2 million Americans in
prisons, the majority (about 60 percent on
average), are non-violent prisoners of (drug) war.
As a nation we spend nearly $50 billion every year
to fight illegal drugs.  Yet today kids as young
as 10 and 11 are found dealing on school-yards
across the country.  There is an abundance of
supply which continues to flood our streets, the
drugs are cheaper and more powerful than ever.
Governments' enforcement of drug laws continues to
become more aggressive and violent.  Over the
Labor Day weekend 2 long-time, non-violent
marijuana activists in Michigan were gunned down
by state and federal law enforcement.  Orphaning
a 5-year old child and traumatizing an entire
community in the process.

    This same Bush government now seeking to bomb
Afghanistan - bin Laden's "host" country for the
last several years - back into the stone-age is
the same government which gave the ruling Taliban
$43 million in April of this year, supposedly to
eradicate opium poppy cultivation.  In effect saying,
"we don't care if you harbor terrorists, just as
long as you tow our drug war line."  Blind
obsession is a common trait among all terrorists.

    Now these same people, Bush, his Cabinet, the
Congress who give us this failed drug war are
proposing to engage America's full military might
and personnel in a "war against terrorism."  The
very same people who can't even stop 10 percent of
of illegal drugs and could not stop last week's
attack, are now telling us we should prepare to
sacrifice our sons and daughters fighting an
"enemy" our intelligence people can't even find.

In the case of Osama bin Laden, a creature of our
own CIA's creation back in the late 1980s.  And
now they want permission to work with, and
support people who are even nastier than him!

    While it may offend some to point out this
obvious contradiction, and yes it raises serious
issues which span decades of treason, war crimes and
corruption in high places, eclipsing the drug
war, even this plague of terrorism.

    Yet if we are to sincerely honor those who have
been senselessly killed and those now suffering
their loss, and to find a way to help prevent
anything like this from happening in the future,
then I say we must speak out, and more.  We must
strive to put the full truth before the American
people and let them decide for themselves.

    We all want to stop terrorism, but if this
government's drug war folly and intelligence
breakdown are any example, well then maybe we
should start at home.  With a new government that
actually respects human rights while protecting its
citizens from fanatics, both domestic and foreign.
End the drug war.

    Nation's longest running DRUG PEACE VIGIL: Here
in Portland, Oregon, please join me any Tuesday
through Friday, 4-6p.m. on the sidewalk in front
of the Phantom Gallery, 3125 SE Belmont Street
(bus# 15).

Best regards,

Floyd Ferris Landrath,
1992 Founder & director
American Antiprohibition League
Co-founder Portland NORML (1994)

        PORTLAND
    DRUG PEACE VIGILS
Sidewalk in front of THE PHANTOM GALLERY
 3125 SE Belmont St.,
     Tues-Fri, 4-6pm

"Experience [has] shown that, even under the
best forms [of government], those entrusted
with power have, in time and by slow operations,
perverted it into tyranny."
--Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779.

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully
exercised over any member of a civilized community,
against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His
own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient
warrant." John Stuart Mill



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