THE 'MARKETING PLAN' OF THE LAW

Re: "Drinking age might need to fall," Steve Blow's column, June 10.

"Tell teens they can't drink till 21, and you instantly create an
exciting game of cat and mouse, a handy act of defiance and the
allure of forbidden fruit ... The booze industry couldn't create a
better marketing plan."

I wonder how much of this "marketing plan" can be attributed to the
booze industry. The same marketing plan applies to illegal drugs as
well, but it's not the drug makers' doing, either. Isn't it the
marketing plan of the law?

Mr. Blow says we could learn from the French kids' "utter ho-hum
indifference" to alcohol. We could learn much wisdom from Europe:
Remove the "forbidden fruit" by legalizing drugs, subsidize them at
cost, identify the abusers and provide help, and the black market is
obliterated - no profit motivation, no victims, no enforcement, no
lawyers, no fines, no court costs - and there goes your "marketing
plan."

Don Radke, Denton, Texas