DRUG WAR

To the Editor;

Re: your editorial: "Drug Task Force" 6/19/01.

It is interesting that your consistently accuse those who have suggestions
about better ways to handle drugs in America of wanting to poison our
children, while, at the same time, you praise who continue to support a
policy that has caused steady increases in drug use by our children since
it's inception.

You also accuse critics of our failed policy of being supporters of the
drug dealers when, with a moment's thought on the subject, it would be
plain to any 12 year old that ending drug prohibition would put the drug
dealers out of business overnight.

Thirty years ago, before America chose to embark on this disasterous
policy, an adult would have been hard-pressed to find some cocaine or
heroin in Ogdensburg. Today it's readily available in our schools. What a
great job we're doing protecting our children.

Obviously we're doing such a great job at creating a "drug-free" country
that we don't need to look around the world to see what our neighbors are
doing about their drug problems, but if we did... We'd see that the
Canadians to our north, the Mexicans, Colombians, Uruguayans, and others to
our south, as well as the Dutch, Germans, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese,
Swiss, Belgians, and most of industrialized Europe are all moving steadily
toward de-criminalization and regulation of drugs. Do you think they are
all in league with the drug dealers? Do you think they yearn for the crime
rates we have in America? Perhaps, for some devilish reason we don't
understand, they all want to poison their children? More likely however,
they have seen what the war on drugs has done to America and want to
actually protect their children.

Nicolas Eyle Executive director Reconsider: Forum on Drug Policy Syracuse,
New York