Today at high noon our small home in West Hills became the fifth home burglarized in our neighborhood in the past week. With my wife at work and our other car in the shop, the home must have looked empty. The burglars kicked in our backyard garage door then entered the kitchen before they discovered my son and I were home. No one was hurt. The LAPD sent a car out a few hours later and took a desultory report that gets filed with the rest of the "who cares" notices.
Despite the rash of residential robberies, no extra patrols are possible according to the police. They are too busy arresting drug users and filling our prisons with nonviolent offenders. Usually, the DEA keeps pretty close tabs on this writer what with our AAMC positions advocating medical cannabis and insisting on the resignation of our misguided John Ashcroft. Unfortunately, the DEA was not watching the house today. Would they have intervened in any event?
Does anyone at the police department or the DEA or in Congress realize that drug prohibition is the direct cause of our burglary? Can anyone calculate the enormous harm prohibition is causing our communities? If a junkie needs a fix please provide it rather than forcing him to steal my computer, watches, stereo, etc. Let him get help. Expand treatment. Start real and honest drug education. Stop this stupid drug war and go after terrorists, robbers, murderers, and burglars.
Where were all of those trained police that investigated and raided the LACRC when I needed them? Where were the armed agents that conducted the surveillance and raid on Dr. Mollie Fry? What about all of those helicopters that constantly fly over our neighborhood looking for pot plants? Couldn’t they take a moment to catch burglars instead of peaceful patients growing their medicine?
Now my son is sleeping with a baseball bat by the bed. My wife is frightened. Our entire neighborhood is up in arms. We want real law enforcement to protect our persons and our property. How about taking that three million dollars spent on Super Bowl ads to tell us that folks smoking Humboldt homegrown are murderers and spending it on real law and order? Couldn’t we use that taxpayer money to catch real crooks?
We are a conservative Christian family. We believe in basic Christian and Libertarian values. Folks can do whatever they want so long as they don’t harm me and mine. Let’s stop all of this nonsense about "war" on this and "war" on that. Just go after the bad guys and throw their butts in a cell. Leave patients alone. Leave adults exercising personal choice alone.
End the drug war and you end the billions upon billions that drive the drug dealers, corrupt politicians and police, mafia, terrorists, and other "causes" that benefit from prohibition. Take one tenth of that money and protect our homes and our families. End the damn war and we’ll all sleep better at night. Maybe my son can use his baseball bat for sports.
