The war on drugs is a farce. Its subtext is a propagation of the racial caste system started by the Jim Crow laws. This war is lost. We have lost three generations to institutions via felony convictions for non-violent drug charges. Over 75% of people in prisons are there because of this so-called war. These laws are disproportionally enforced in low-income and minority neighborhoods. It is well known fact that race, ethnicity, and income-level have no bearing on drug use/abuse. It is also fact that if heroin were made legal, that almost no one would choose to become a junkie. Drug use/abuse is a health care issue, not a law enforcement crisis. The treasure spent on this suspiciously ill-conceived war could be better spent on health care, education, job training, housing, almost anything lacking in today's low-income neighborhoods. Prisons benefit the rich and are often located in poor rural white areas with the promise of jobs. No one told them what guarding prisoners does to an otherwise free man. Do we want publicly traded corporation taking public money to house and work those incarcerated for non-violent drug crimes? Or would we rather invest that money into the inner-city child who will solve the energy problem or find a cure for a rare disease? Perhaps spending that money on helping family farms retain their youth by extending technology services into rural areas? It's not hard to envision an America that does not lead the world in per capita prison population, but leads the world in science, agriculture, mathematics, and engineering. I am from Louisiana, ground zero for the largest prison population when compared to the population of the state. I can see a world where prisons are used sparingly, as a last resort instead of a garbage can, a nation who sees that the people have been divided for financial gain by our leadership under the influence of big banks, insurance, and the "ultra-pious" politics of social control, and a state who realizes the great treasure that can be provided by even the lowest citizens to enrich the state without being a victim of the Neo-Plantations of our penal system. Please stand up for the least of us. Please end this useless war. Please restore equal protection under the law for the first time ever. The constitution says it, but I've never witnessed it. We all deserve it and we are only a free as the least free of us. Never before have we be so close to finishing the work begun by Martin Luther King Jr. Do it.