As a Muslim, my political sympathies lie largely with Leftists and Progressives – enviromental preservation, worker safety, women's rights, racial unity, global peace, support for the Palestinians. But when I read just about every Leftist intellectual call for legalization of drugs, however, I must part ways with them. They say addiction is a victimless crime that only hurts the addicted person. According to the NHTSA, 50% of drivers in fatal crashes had a BAC of .10 or higher. The drunk killed someone – his victim. Leftists who want legalization of drugs admit this would take the profit out of it for pushers – drugs would become cheap. Maybe you could buy them at your local 7-11. Imagine all the hit-and-run killers we now have, and then add the cocaine drivers. Then add the crack drivers. Then add the PCP drivers. Then add the marijuana drivers who turn … just a little … too late. Certainly, it would be illegal to drive high on drugs – just like drunk driving is illegal now.

Addicts without cars also victimize others – starting with their children. If drugs were cheap and legal, junkies would not be wealthy, then, either. Heroin, like alcohol, requires an increase in dosage to cause intoxication for frequent users. Increased dosage requires increased money. Users use terms like “Godsmack” for their drug of choice because they worship it like slaves (to use the Muslim metaphor) and will submit to anything for its favor. Hence junkie prostitutes, who are just as fertile (if they're women) as anyone else. Children born addicted, disfigured, physically disabled, or psychotic – as crack babies are – would appear in droves. If they escape all that, they can still be beaten or murdered during their parent's binge blackout. They may be made into little prostitutes themselves to support their parent's habit. Or, they may just be neglected while the parent find new ways to pay for the ever-harder-to-reach high. Any of these scenarios of drug legalization end up in one thing – children taken away from their parents and put in a home for abused children. Democratic Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton has written passionately on the rights of the child – is this the Liberal vision of family life?

As a child I was in a hit-and-run accident. Given the time of night, I have reason to believe my attacker was drunk. I survived, of course, but I don't think I could've survived roadways filled with the full range of fiends. I've lived in a crack-infested neighborhood. I think if the Liberal law professors who endorse legalization lived in my apartment, they might mention the factors I do – the ones they never do in their papers. I came of age in group homes for disturbed youth, no padded Paradise those, and I can tell you, young people need healthy families. Of course, all of my reasoning still involves comparison, so let me give you an example of how legalization actually works.

I've got Celtic blood. The Irish are famous for the pub and the pint. The English gave the Isles liquor to devastate the civilization, the better to conquer them, just as with Native Americans -- I've heard it said Ireland was the first ghetto in Europe. You may think all of that is ancient history, but it's not. Read the rich literature of poetry, novels, plays, and memoirs like Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes – it won a Pulitzer Prize and was made into a movie. Read, and it's always there – victims, victims of victims, victims of ale and stout and lager. Yes, I'm a Muslim, so I think alcohol should be outlawed. If you're not Muslim – and lots of American Liberals aren't – I don't expect you to agree. But don't be giving us this hippie leftover. Man alive, are you high?