LET THE DEA ARREST ALL DRUG USERS

Re: "New drug czar, DEA chief seen as hard-liners," May 11.

With radical prohibitionists now appointed to every drug policy position in
the current administration, perhaps the U.S. can finally enforce the drug
laws like they should be enforced. Let the Drug Enforcement Administration
now arrest all drug users, whether casual or seriously addicted, all those
weekend tokers, all those crazy mushroom imbibers, all those deluded
"medical marijuana" fans, and let thousands of new prisons and treatment
centers be built to house all these evil people, and finally... finally...
what?

It has been said that the best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it
to the maximum. Let us hope the exaggeration of prohibition that seems
certain to come during the present administration will demonstrate once and
for all the fabulous folly of prosecuting consensual crimes in a free
society, of locking up or forcibly "treating" people whose great misdeed is
merely to prefer drugs other than the current range of socially and
pharmaceutically approved ones.

PETER WEBSTER

Review Editor, International Journal of Drug Policy, Auvare, France