DRUG BAN COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

A recent letter writer obviously confused as to what is funding
terrorism. It is drug prohibition, not the drugs that are funding
terrorism.

At the beginning of the last century, Bayer heroin was sold in local
pharmacies for about the same price as Bayer aspirin. Also, Coca-Cola
contained cocaine instead of caffeine and sold for 5 cents a bottle.
Drug users didn't have to rob, steal or commit acts of prostitution
to obtain their drugs. Drug lords and drug dealers as we know them
today, didn't exist.

Drug prohibition is just as counterproductive as alcohol prohibition.
Today, drug buyers are purchasing drugs of unknown quality, unknown
potency and unknown purity.

This is not unlike the "bathtub gin" our grandfathers bought during
alcohol prohibition that resulted in needless blindings and deaths.

Drug prohibition is funding organized crime at home and international
terrorists abroad. Let's end this insanity known as the war on
(politically selected) drugs.

KIRK MUSE,
Vancouver, Wash.