Richard Dennis

No sane person wants to see the use of dangerous drugs increase.

In fact, the best argument for maintaining a ban on drugs is the assertion that legalization would send the wrong signal to potential users—acting almost as an implicit gov-ernment encouragement of drug use.

Legalization or decriminalization would also mean easier availability—an open invitation to increased usage.

So why not maintain a ban on narcotics?

Because no sane person should want to suffer the side effects of keeping drugs illegal.

The practical arguments for legalizing drugs are many. Legalization would bring competition to the drug industry, removing the extraordinary profits t,o be made in the illicit drug trade.

Faced with the thin margins of a real competitive enterprise, the violent drug lords would retreat to other enter-prises. Just as the repeal of Prohibition marked the dimunition of gangsters, so would the legalization of drugs lessen the violent drug wars on our urban streets. In Los Angeles, random kill-ings of luxury car drivers are among the rights of initiation of gang mem-bers. Their brazenness may be drug induced, but their expensive weapons are bought with drug profits.

Legalization would also increase the ability of authorities to steer fear-ful addicts from an underworld drug culture toward rehabilitation programs. It would reverse the growing problem of police corruption, save the lives of countless brave and honest law en-forcement officers, unclog court dockets, and free prison space for the most violent criminals. It would remove the influence of narcodollars in drug-ex-porting, third-world nations.

There's an even more important reason why we should give up the war on drugs. It, too, sends the wrong sig-nal about drug use. As in many other areas, government has overstated its ability to be our protector. Government is not the greater power that will save us from ourselves.

We are getting the wrong signal if we are led to believe that only govern-ment is strong enough to save us from self-destruction. We risk thinking of drugs like we think of Russian mis-siles—that no amount of individual action can block their destructive force.

We are wrongly diminishing the idea of individual responsibility. We ought to reconsider whether we want an increasingly Draconian war on drugs.

You don't have to like Ronald Reagan to appreciate his most famous line (purloined from Barry Goldwater), "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything you have." And in this case, a govern-ment big enough to save you from hurting yourself with drugs is a gov-ernment big enough to keep you from doing with your life what you see fit.

Richard Dennis is a prominent Chicago businessman who has been involved in a number of good causes. He is Presi-dent of the Chicago Resource Center, which works in the ciuil liberties and drug abuse fields.