More than 26,000 lives may be lost to the effects of drug abuse this year. This tragic impact is felt in communities across this great nation. Sadly many of these deaths occur among our young people.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Drugs ruin peoples lives, break up families and have disastrous effects on our communities.
What happened? The Country got sick of it and said, Enough is enough. And all over the Country we saw springing up community organizations determined to do something about this terrible menace of drugs.
Back in the 1960s, the number of deaths each year from unintentional poisoning was 15 times greater than it is today.
The drug war has been a war where the direct casualties have primarily been America's poor; America's minorities; and often, unfortunately, America's vulnerable, in terms of people with disease and addiction and mental health.
The war on drugs is being lost on a daily basis.
We have witnessed the terrible increases in the incidence of alcoholism, the advent of drug dependency, the protests, marches, strikes and human alienation.
In large part, thanks to widespread immunization, the number of young children dying each year has declined significantly, from approximately 14 million in 1979 to slightly less than eight million in 2010.
Our communities face many challenges, from keeping our kids safe in public, to the war on terrorism. But few have such immediate consequences as we face from methamphetamine.
After spending three years of my life looking into this, I am more convinced than ever that the U.S. government's responsibility for the drug problems in South Central Los Angeles and other inner cities is greater than I ever wrote in the newspaper.
I believe that the war on drugs is a tragically misplaced use of resources - an immoral venture that produces far more suffering than it alleviates.
No opposing quotes found.