DRUG WAR IS ODIOUS, TYRANNICAL

TO THE EDITOR:

Tom Hedrick of the Partnership for a Drug Free America ("Point of
View," June 17) wrote, "Take Darryl Strawberry and Robert Downey Jr.
The former baseball All-Star and the Oscar-nominated actor both are
in drug treatment programs, their careers and lives forever damaged."
And why is that? Because they were caught by the enforcers of the
drug war. Downey was caught alone in a motel room, hardly endangering
anybody. Strawberry never hurt anyone either. But in spite of that,
they're fair game for anybody with a anti-drug ax to grind.

It's no longer necessary to commit a real crime to be treated like a
criminal. All you need is to disobey the enforcers of the malevolent
and odious war on drugs, so that individuals like Hedrick can live
out their fantasies of purity, not their own, but ours.

Remember how we used to laugh at the stories of the Soviet repression
when they'd put people in "mental hospitals" for "re-education"?
Laugh now, I dare you.

Harry D. Fisher, Woodland Hills, Calif.