"Drug Deaths"

And so goes a commercial being aired on the local cable channel. The facts from the Federal Bureau of Mortality Statistics and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, however, contradict this:

1) Illicit drug overdoses, deliberate or accidental, from all ILLEGAL drugs kill 3,800 to 5,200 Americans per year.

2) Overdoses from "LEGAL" drugs, prescribed or patent medicines, including aspirin, claim 28,000 lives per year.

3) CAFFEINE, the substitute for cocaine in "coca" cola, kills up to 10,000 people per year due to stress, ulcers and triggering irregular heartbeats.

4) ALCOHOL, a drug so powerful it can render an adult incapable of walking and talking, is the cause of over 150,000 deaths. This doesn't include 50% of all highway deaths and 65% of all murders. (This is the DRUG that national statistics claim is responsible for most violent crimes!)

5) TOBACCO kills almost half a million people per year--more than all these drugs, all traffic fatalities, and all handgun deaths combined--every single year!

6) CANNABIS HEMP, on the other hand, one of our most ancient crops, has never killed one single human being in 10,000 years of commercial, medicinal, religious and personal use!

Repeal prohibition and stop all the senseless violence and petty thieving associated with it! Release the prisoners of war and empty over 50% of the prison beds--federal, state and local--so they can be filled by those who truly deserve them: murderers, thieves, rapists and those who abuse our children!!

June 1994
© 1994-2001 kgs