DRUG POLICY REFORMERS ARE REAL ENEMY IN DRUG WAR

I wish to respond to the April 1 letter to the editor "Drug laws
create youth drug market," from Robert Sharpe of the Lindesmith
Center-Drug Policy Foundation.

It has been 15 years since the cocaine-related death of my son - 15
years without seeing his face, hearing his laughter or watching him
grow into manhood. During those 15 years, I have learned that it's not
just the dealers we have to be wary of, it's those who promote drug
use as a personal right, the drug-policy reformers. Drug-policy
reformers and drug dealers, just like the tobacco industry, have
always targeted adolescents and young adults for recruits. Marijuana
smoke, however, has far more carcinogens and toxins than tobacco. No
one has been admitted to a hospital for smoking one tobacco cigarette,
but marijuana is a leading cause of drug-related emergency-room
episodes. There can be no doubt that if marijuana were used by
society as freely as tobacco, the medical consequences would be far
greater.

Those promoting the legalization of psychoactive and addictive
substances speciously claim that current drug policy has been unable
to stop drug use and trafficking, so drugs should be legalized. That
is as ludicrous as demanding that child abuse and rape should be
legalized because they cannot be eradicated, either. The fact is that
society needs to try harder. The first step would be to expose the
true agenda of such organizations as the Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy
Foundation, whose two parts have long advocated the legalization of
drugs, and especially marijuana, for personal recreational use. In
fact, Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor Lester Grinspoon,
one of the most outspoken of the "medical" marijuana advocates, still
claims that cocaine is harmless if used in moderation. Yet it was a
"trace" of cocaine that triggered the cardiac arrest that took our
son's life.

As for doctors deciding what's best for their patients, there are
doctors who, through incompetence, personal use of addictive drugs or
lack of conscience, do great harm to their patients under the guise of
treatment. Failing or refusing to provide the best treatment possible
for a patient should be cause for removal of a physician's license.
Recommending unproven, illicit substances in place of scientifically
proven therapeutic drugs would fall in that category. Coddling and
abetting bad behavior only makes it worse, something every parent and
teacher knows to be true. The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy
Foundation would have us believe otherwise.

SANDRA S. BENNETT

Director

Northwest Center for Health & Safety

LaCenter, Wash.