‘The Witness’ musical coming to Mena for one night only

The Arkansas State Police has a history photo album and are seeking help identifying people. https:// www.dps.arkansas.gov/law-enforcement/arkansas-state-police/ directors-office/asp-history/photo-album/

Now in its 43rd year of production, “The Witness,” a state tourist attraction and Arkansas’ only musical passion play, returned to its touring schedule last spring. “The Witness” presents the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as apostle Peter relays the miraculous events he witnessed. He is accompanied by a cast/crew of over 40 actors and singers. It has been said by many through the decades, “The scenes literally come to life in front of you!”

Having begun in 1981 basically as a prison ministry. After a few seasons, “The Witness” was offered an open door in the Hot Springs amphitheater for 12 years.

Other doors opened, and they built a new 1000-seat amphitheater near Magic Springs on beautiful Panther Valley Ranch where the Gospel was presented through music and drama to thousands for 17 years. During the amphitheater years, the production continued to reach into the Arkansas prisons, and also into Angola prison in Louisiana.

For the last nine years, the production has been on tour around the state and traveled to Singapore where they partnered with a mega-church to present Jesus’ Gospel through “The Witness” to thousands.

In wisdom, they took time off during the pandemic, but they were thrilled last spring to call the cast/crew back together to resume their tour to prisons, event centers and churches in Arkansas and surrounding states.

A free presentation of “The Witness” will be performed at 7 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 12. the Mena Performing Arts Center at Mena High School. A love offering will be received. It is presented by Witness Productions Inc. For more information call 501-620-0698.

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A recent letter writer commented on an article that appeared in the Washington Examiner titled, “How George Soros is spreading addiction, death, and chaos across the US.” This letter [Pulse, July 19, 2023] spoke of the supposed evils of legalized marijuana.

This made me curious to know more about this subject. The author of the letter also stated the Drug Policy Alliance had received millions in funding from George Soros to “create cutting edge policies that have fundamentally transformed the direction of drug policy in the U.S.”

Want to share your opinion?

Once drugs were made illegal the policy makers had no more tools available to reduce or eliminate drug usage. Their only available tool was to build more prisons to house an ever-growing drug related prison population. It’s estimated half of all inmates in federal prisons are there due to drug related charges.

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That really made me curious. I wasn’t familiar with the Drug Policy Alliance, but am very much aware the War on Drugs initiated by President Richard Nixon has had the same result as did Prohibition in the 1920’s. The U.S. made alcohol illegal from 1920 to 1933. It’s recognized that Prohibition actually increased alcohol consumption and created well-funded organized crime in the U.S. Why? Because Prohibition tried to attack alcohol consumption by taking away the supply but did nothing to reduce the demand for alcohol.

The War on Drugs has put millions of people in prison and given the U.S. the dubious distinction of having the largest prison population in the world. In the past 50 years the U.S. has spent more than $1 trillion dollars on this War on Drugs, and there is more widespread drug usage today than there was 50 years ago! More drugs are coming into the U.S. than 50 years ago because the War on Drugs has the same fatal flaw as did Prohibition... it tries to eliminate supply without doing anything to reduce or eliminate the demand!

The Drug Policy Alliance recognizes the War on Drugs has been a massive failure and wants to change the direction of drug policy in the U.S. The Drug Policy Alliance wants to decriminalize drug usage and instead treat it as a health issue. Their stated policy is as follows:

“Drug Policy Alliance argues that drug laws are used by police to target ethnic minorities, resulting in disproportionate arrest rates, and have no positive impact on drug issues. Therefore, it advocates for decriminalizing all drugs, funding noncoercive medical treatments for drug users, and establishing drug consumption sites where individuals can legally use drugs under supervision.”

There can, and should be, comprehensive discussions regarding drug policy. The policy of the past 50 years hasn’t worked. I don’t know if the policies advocated by the Drug Policy Alliance would improve the situation; however, I do know continuing what we’ve done for 50 years is not good policy. Making drugs illegal hasn’t reduced drug usage, and in fact has increased the import and consumption of illegal drugs.

My dad taught me when one is in

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Letters may be submitted by e-mail to news@mypulsenews.com; mailed to P.O. Box 1450, Mena, AR 71953 or dropped off at 1168 Hwy. 71 South, Mena, AR. A drop-box is provided by the front door for after-hour convenience.

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Email: NEWS@MYPULSENEWS.COM a hole the first thing to do is to stop digging. The U.S. is in a huge hole regarding drug usage. It’s time we stopped digging; stopped destroying lives; stopped spending vast sums of money to achieve results that hurt society and instead look at what has been successful in other countries and societies.

Regards, Robert Tomlinson, Mena