LAWS CREATE MORE CRIME

A recent letter from a deputy police chief described how communities live
in fear over addicts and drug dealers, but these problems for the most part
are not the result of drug-use, but instead are a direct result of the war
on drugs ("Drugs are scourge, must be fought," April 13).

Because it is legal, alcohol hasn't created a crime wave. Liquor stores
don't have shoot-outs. The gunfire in the neighborhoods is the result of an
unregulated underground economy. The addicts steal because, like prices of
any black-market items, drug prices are artificially exorbitant. If drugs
were legal and regulated, drug dealers would not plague our streets. The
price of drugs could be so low that addicts would be harmless panhandlers
like winos.

The police could focus on real crime, not crime artificially created by
misguided laws. Seems that the police would not want that, especially in
light of how much money is made by corrupt cops shaking down, protecting or
working for drug dealers.

MICHAEL HONOHAN

Honohan is a computer programmer living in Marietta.