It's a sad, indeed tragic, fact that Nixon's war on drugs has actually made it 7 times more likely for your child to come into contact with illegal drugs. The reasons are very straight forward: As the government increases the criminal penalties associated with prohibition, the price of various illegal drugs is increased. The increased price means greater profits for drug dealers. These greater profits attract more and more dealers, and especially, young teenagers.

Remember that when alcohol was illegal under prohibition that young teens were attracted to the easy profits from the criminal trade of alcohol. The same is true of recreational substance prohibitions. And as our young are brought into the illegal drug trade, they bring that criminal element into our schools.

Just like the days of alcohol prohibition, we need to remove the profits from the black market for recreational substances. Virtually every study done on the issue in the last several years has shown that only by removing the profits from the black market can we end the black market. And the only way to de-profitize the black market is to replace prohibition with regulation and taxation.

As it stands, our government is supporting the illegal drug trade, and sending huge profits overseas to drug lords, by enforcing the current prohibition. Prohibition only helps one group of people - drug dealers and drug lords. It promotes higher profits for them at the expense of our children, and indeed, our society.

Our children depend on us - we MUST work to protect them by ending the government's support of illegal drugs. We must replace prohibition with regulation, and put the drug dealers out of business once and for all!