DRUG DEALERS

Your Dec. 24 editorial "Help police stem violence" describes a scenario as
familiar as a tired rerun: Authorities crack down on drug-dealing
hooligans, and the neighborhood enjoys temporary peace. Soon the dealers
and violence are back, and residents resign themselves to the futility of
reporting drug activity, as you note in your call for their cooperation in
helping police "put the drug dealers out of business."

These residents know firsthand what more of us are beginning to recognize:
Insatiable consumer demand for illegal intoxicants combined with adamant
prohibition create irresistible profit potential for criminals and ensure
an intractable, permanently entrenched black market. Like fire ants, the
drug dealers can be briefly suppressed or relocated, but not eliminated.
Among the many evils of this situation is violence, with innocents
frequently caught in the cross fire.

Systematic efforts to reduce individual drug use have met with limited
success, and, from a law enforcement perspective, there are few, if any,
untried options. The outlook is for this stalemate to go on indefinitely.

It is time to start thinking outside the box and confront the heretofore
sacred cow that obstructs progress: prohibition itself. Those with a rigid
moral perspective or vested interest in the status quo can be expected to
oppose the legal but regulated distribution of currently illicit
intoxicants, but denial must be overcome and admission made that current
policy has failed.

The violent drug dealers can and should be put out of business, but in the
business world, the demise of one's rivals is brought about by competition,
not rhetoric, posturing and repetitious application of provenly
unsuccessful measures.

METT AUSLEY JR., M.D., Lake Waccamaw, N.C.