'WAR ON DRUGS' HAS A DUBIOUS PAST

Your editorial just before Earth Day, and during the Quebec Summit, urges
protesters to speak out against drugs (April 21, "Fight drugs, not trade").
It claims that drugs pose a greater threat to democracy than free trade does.

If this is so, how does the United States government explain its
well-documented use of drug lords in order to fight communism? This took
place in Vietnam, with planes from the Central Intelligence Agency being
used to smuggle heroin into the United States.

Cocaine was implicated in the guns for drugs Iran-Contra scandal, in which
George Bush Sr. played a prominent role.

Also, the CIA helped the present thugs in Afghanistan get into power. These
retrograde fundamentalists use drug trafficking to fund their regime, which
flouts democracy and basic human rights.

Today's generation of dissenters is well aware of the falseness of the War
on Drugs, which many view as a war on black males. Also, in Colombia, the
War on Drugs is used as a smokescreen for a widening counter-insurgency. In
Peru, it allowed a military plane to murder an innocent missionary and her
child.

We didn't ask for the state to spend so much on a basically useless war
against drugs, particularly against soft drugs. This money should be spent
on real policing, so women need not fear the streets at night. Putting so
many black males in prison has just fuelled the rage, and done nothing to
improve society.

It's also ironic that you advocate the war against drugs, while at the same
time publishing a special section on the huge pharmaceutical industry.
These are the real drug pushers, who impoverish our elderly, protect high
prices and place too high a value on their own intellectual property.

This faulty suggestion, that today's protesters don't know what to oppose,
would have led to the total destruction of Vietnam. The power of an empire,
left unchecked, would spread misery and sadness around the planet. And how
would this reduce the demand for the products of the drug lords?

J.M Wolowitz

Saint-Donat