Isn’t it ironic?

Perplexed is the word I have when I received the e-mail promoting An Evening for Haven, a marketed wine auction sponsored by Haven (Help Against Violence Encounters Now). According to the National Research Council, 75 percent of family violence is linked to alcohol abuse (Inaba, D. S., W. E. Cohen & M. E. Holstein, “Uppers, Downers, All Arounders,” sixth ed. CNS Publications Inc., 2007).

Does this not seem ironic that an entity wanting to decrease domestic violence is utilizing a major contributor to domestic and family violence as a money maker?

Makes me wonder.

Jennifer D. Johnson, M.S.W.
Hood River

Cars … or boats

Now that Rick Wagoner has stepped down as CEO of GM, Ford and Chrysler, CEOs better start thinking about their jobs and changing their practices or they will end up in the same boat.

Ron Dunn
Hood River

Drug blues

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently visited Mexico City, where she met with officials to discuss the growing violence along the U.S.-Mexican border. Clinton said that America’s demand for drugs is the principal reason for the drug-related violence.

Someone needs to paste a note to Hillary’s forehead that reads “It’s Prohibition, STUPID!” America’s demand for whiskey and tequila doesn’t cause the distributors of those drugs to hack heads off cops now, does it?

Budweiser and Corona distributors aren’t kidnapping people and having shoot-outs over profits made from selling their drug. The principal reason they aren’t fighting it out in the streets is because alcohol distributors operate within a legal, regulated and controlled market. The same type of regulation and control must be done for the drug trade. The prohibitionists have had it their way long enough.

Americans do drugs. We can either deal with the problems caused by the use of these drugs or we can deal with the problems caused by their use and all of the ills that come along with their prohibition. Legalization, regulation and education must be considered as a weapon in our drug control arsenal. Otherwise, we let criminals reap huge profits while they control the price, availability, purity, and who they’re going to sell their drugs to with no age limits and no I.D. required. Take the worst drug you can think of, add prohibition, and it only makes it worse.

Also, pro-gun advocates need to wise up. The crime and violence created by drug prohibition is being used by the progressive gun grabbers who will miss no opportunity to chip away at our gun rights.

Every time a drug dealer shoots somebody, it causes hunters, target shooters, and gun collectors to have to dig deeper into their pockets and send more money to the pro-gun lobby. The crisis on the Mexican border is sure to bring more demonization of guns, gun owners, and gun shows, along with more prohibitionist minded and unenforceable gun regulations.

Honestly, if “the proof is in the pudding,” then the crime, corruption and violence that’s spilling over into the U.S., with 9,000 dead, and no end in sight, is proof enough for me.

I will never vote for another politician that supports prohibition as an effective means of combating drug use and abuse. Learn for yourself www.DrugSense.org.

Curt Wagoner
Mosier

Applaud idea

What a novel idea from Pastor David Duncombe (Our Readers Write, March 28): Help the people of Afghanistan instead of killing them!

It would never work, though. There is no profit in it. War is very profitable for the munitions industry and all the support groups that supply men and materials for the effort. And World War II was responsible, in great part, for ending the Great Depression, which benefited everybody (except the people who had to fight it, and were killed and maimed, and those who happened to be in the path of the fighting). That was supposed to be the war that ended all wars. But it seems that wars will never end.

But I applaud those like David who have the courage to suggest that we as a people should at least consider other alternatives to war and all its horrors.

Anne Vance
Hood River