Most people don't know that Prohibition was passed as a humanitarian gesture to save grain to send it to starving European Allies in World War 1.

After the war abruptly ended on November 11, 1918 as a result of the 1918 influenza epidemic, President Wilson tried to repeal the amendment.

But congressional politicans were fearful that they would be painted as 'wets' in the pockets of the liquor industry, and voted instead to pass the Volstead Act, a harsh enforcement bill that they passed over a presidential veto!

After 15 years of what we are now again enduring in terms of wrecked lives, overflowing prisons, gang wars and political corruption born of outrageoulsy wealthy organized criminals, the anti-prohibition movement, which was mostly women, demanded its repeal, and got it by opposing Republicans, which was the majority party, and electing democrat Franklin Roosevelt.

Had they taken this page from the book of the brilliant political tactician, suffragette Alice Paul sooner, they may have achieved their goal much sooner.

Rather than asking politicians to support the suffrage cause, her tactic was to hold the party in power accountable and oppose the election and re-election of every member of the entire party - rather than focusing on individual politicians.

This strategy forced the party in power to take notice and take action, and it got the votes for women amendment passed.

It could be employed successfully now to end the drug war against American citizens.

The democratic party has the power to end the drug war now and we can demand that they do it, or oppose all democrats so that the party loses its majority.

The drug war is an age and racial issue as it disproportionately affects the young of the black and Latino communities, and has robbed a large percentage of the members of these communities of their right to vote as a reault of felony convictions.

We can learn much that can be useful in rescuing our country from the scourge of drug prohibition by understanding the struggle for votes for women.

"The Privilege of Voting." is a new and exhaustively researched historical e-mail series that goes behind the scenes in the lives of eight well-known women from 1912 to 1920 to reveal the shocking truth of HOW the suffragettes won the vote.

The women depicted include two of the most beautiful and outspoken suffragettes -- Alice Paul and Emmeline Pankhurst, along with Edith Wharton, Isadora Duncan, Alice Roosevelt, and two stunning presidential mistresses.

There are weddings and funerals, babies in peril, damsels in distress, war, peace, broken hearts and lots of hot affairs on the rocky road to the ballot box.

The best part is it's ALL true!

Presented via e-mail in a unique, sequential, interwoven short-story format called Coffeebreak Readers - it makes discovering the heroines of women's suffrage history fast and fun!

Each action-packed e-mail episode takes about 10 minutes to read, so they are perfect to enjoy on coffeebreaks, or anytime.

You can subscribe to receive free twice-weekly e-mails at:

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I would be interested to hear your opinion on the series should you choose to subscribe.

Best to you,

Virginia Harris
Series Author
Publisher
www.CoffeebreakReaders.com

In my opinion the only reason more people aren't supporting full legalization is because they simply don't know what it means. And that's understandable.

For many it's going to drum up an image of making everything that's currently illegal, legal. All the criminal gangs dealing marijuana would suddenly be doing so legally, all the marijuana smuggled in from Mexico and sold by teenagers at our schools would suddenly be done so legally, all the weed grown on public land and in grow houses would suddenly become legally grown weed, and no restrictions could be placed on anyone or anything if it's done in the name of marijuana.

Well, that's not actually what a legalized marijuana market is about. It is about approving the production and sale of marijuana by honest businessmen. It is about taxing and regulating a market that is currently untaxed and unregulated. And it is about forcing out the gangs and criminal organizations by undercutting their prices to a point where they can no longer make a profit and stay in the market.

Just as the law currently recognizes a distinction between bootlegging and legal alcohol production it will also recognize a distinction between illegal marijuana production and legal production by authorized growers. And just as the law recognizes the legal sale of alcohol it will also recognize the distinction between the legal sale of marijuana in approved establishments from its illegal sale by non-approved, unregulated and untaxed dealers.

Legalized marijuana will reduce the availability of marijuana to minors, generate in the order of $30 billion in tax revenues annually and end the discrimination of law-abiding citizens whose only crime is that they prefer to relax with marijuana instead of alcohol.

its time for this government to end its paranoid criminalization on a simple, plant, herb. having visited Amsterdam several times in my life, i found it freeing to be able to smoke herb in public, there was no craziness from people doing this either. just a lot of pleasantly stoned people. and think of all the taxes that could be raised from this harmless herb! I prefer marajuana to alcahol myself, since it never has given me a hangover, and is not habit forming as some people would have you believe. thank you.

anonymous

Decriminalization is about human compassion. How can altering one's consciousness be a serious crime that warrents a legalized form of persecution? Marijuana consumers are facing a similar abuse that religious or racial descriminates endured in the past. Then we learned that one group of people can not be singled out and treated less than human.

The decriminalization stance is a stance for equal rights, and fair treatment. Going the other way is a vote for human abuse. It is only a matter of time before more polititions wake up to this reality. Those left behind will look like racists, gay bashers, or Nazis.

We should legalize it so that all the airplane mechanics, bus drivers, teachers and surgeons can smoke all they want.