STOP THE DRUG WAR

Missionary Jim Bowers believes God had a plan for his wife, Veronica, and
infant daughter, Charity. He also believes God worked a miracle by
clearing the smoke from their damaged plane's cockpit, enabling the sticken
pilot to guide the survivors to safety ("A puff of smoke, and then chaos at
4,000 feet: Drug War Over Peru," Cover Story, News, April 30).

The true miracle of this tragic event would be a clearing of the drug
policy-smoke screen that has blinded our nation for the past 30 years. It
is a policy bereft of charity, punishing those suffering from drug
addiction rather than offering them the help they need.

Our government should stop defining drug abuse as a crime to be fought by
the police and military, resulting in "collateral damage." We should
instead insist on defining drug abuse as an illness to be addressed by
medical and public health professionals. In Charity's name, we should
spend the billions of tax dollars wasted on prisons and ineffective
interdiction on more cost-effective and compassionate treatment and
rehabilitation.

Jane Marcus

Palo Alto, Calif.