As you are all well aware, along with the decentralization of the federal government brought on by the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, the greatest hypocrisy of the central government also transpired the rise of the Drug Enforcement Administration. President Richard Nixon officially declared the war on drugs in June of 1971. However, it wasnâÄôt until President Ronald Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 that drug use, as Zach Tauer stated in his letter to the editor, became a criminal issue for this country rather than a health issue. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act brought about mandatory prison sentences for some drugs âÄî possession of five grams of crack cocaine carried a minimum five-year prison sentence while powdered cocaine carried the equivalent sentence with possession of 500 grams. Of course, the discrepancy in sentencing had absolutely nothing to do with drug use related to socio-economic status: white people, blow; black people, crack. However, of the entire population of the United States, African Americans comprise 12 percent of the population and 13 percent of the drug user population. Yet, according to the report âÄúRacial Disparities in the American Criminal Justice System,âÄù African Americans comprise 38 percent of all drug related arrests and 59 percent of the population convicted and charged with a drug offense. So if anything, I would like to say thank you to First Lady Nancy Reagan, and her âÄúJust Say NoâÄù campaign, for bringing equality and justice to all citizens of this great country. We are the United States of America, the so-called greatest democracy in the world, and yet all we have to show for it is years of unjust criminal prosecutions and the unwarranted federal oversight of the drug trade and of drug usage. It is ironic that presidential administrations such as NixonâÄôs and ReaganâÄôs, which advocated the devolution of power away from the federal government, also advocated a federal agency (the DEA) and federal laws to force the drug users of this country into deadly submission. With laws such as the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 and the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, the federal government has expanded its oversight on drugs to the entire nation, thus rebuffing any advances for true power devolution. As Neil Young sang in criticism of the first Bush administration: âÄúWe got a thousand points of light for the homeless man; We got a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand; We got department stores and toilet paper; Got styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer; Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive; Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive. (So) Keep on rockinâÄô in the free world.âÄù In a free world, we would treat those with medical disorders, not throw them in prison like some violent criminal. In a free world, politicians and societal leaders would have the courage to address the dire failures of our criminal justice system. The history of American drug laws and law enforcement is wrought with a malicious, hypocritical and myopic politik. It is high time society own up to this failure. Steve Whitten University undergraduate student Please send comments to [email protected].