ELDERLY VIEW ON DRUGS

Dear Editor;

Today as a widow at aged 82 with my family all grown I have more free
time for myself so I have written several letters to our
representatives. I sometimes get the feeling some of them don't take the
elderly too seriously.

We have seen many changes in our life time, for instance, prohibition of
alcohol. The Government couldn't keep people from drinking and many were
killed by an inferior product as well as the crime that went with it. At
present time being a retired nurse as well as housewife.

I am really amazed of the thought that the people voted for the use of
medical marijuana yet the Government still refuses to let the people
have it. My opinion is that we in the United States are responsible for
our own dilemma. Why are we going to other countries and blaming them
for sending drugs into our country?

If there were no demand or market in the U.S. drugs would not be coming
here. Let's do a lot more in the U.S. to take responsibility for our own
short comings and stay out of other countries. What is so difficult
about figuring that out?

There will always be some people who use drugs.

What is alcohol?

It is a drug. When it is used to excess it causes plenty of trouble as
well as loss of many lives.

Why not control drugs as we do the alcohol.

People now drink a safer product versus that of prohibition time. It is
up to those who use alcohol to use it in moderation. People should be
responsible for what they do not the Government.

I am a member of ReconsiDer: A Forum on Drug Policy, and I disagree with
certain people labeling us as pro drug users.

We simply want people to be more open and discuss the drug war with
honest debate about what is best for the nation.

Anna Matthews, Morristown, New York

LIKES EDITORIALS

To The Editor;

I want to commend the Ogdensburg Journal and Mr. Charles Kelly for the
excellent letters that have been printed over the pass few months about
the "drug war". We absolutely need to open this debate up.

Mr. Kelly does not acquiesce with their views on ending the drug war. He
does however believe in their constitutional right of free speech.

I believe that to be a big positive for St Lawrence County Newspapers
Corp.

Our constitutional rights are slowly but surely receding because of the
drug war. Our rights against unlawful search and seizures are constantly
violated.

You can not work until you give up a cup of excretions from your body.
That has nothing to do with you being under the influence, or your
qualifications for the job. It is about your personal life for the pass
30 days or more!

Every week in the paper some one is searched because of a routine
traffic stop, head light or tail light out, music to loud, or like last
week, just for walking down a side walk! I don't think people realize
just how much the U.S. is turning into a police state because of the
drug war!

One short comment on the letter "CASUALTIES" in last Sundays paper.

I believe the lady was trying to establish the "Gateway Theory" when she
went from marijuana to crack---heroin.

In March 1999, the Institute of Medicine issued a report on various
aspects of marijuana, including the so-called, Gateway Theory (the
theory that using marijuana leads people to use harder drugs like
cocaine and heroin). The IOM stated, "There is no conclusive evidence
that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent
abuse of other illicit drugs."

Source: Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A Benson, Jr.
Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of Medicine,
Marijuana and Medicine Assessing the Science Base (Washington, DC
National Academy Press, 1999).

Harold Mitchell, Ogdensburg, New York

DRUG WAR STATISTICS

To The Editor,

Both the editorial ' CASUALTIES OF THE DRUG WAR' 14 March 2001and Kelly
Comments, ' STAY FIRM AGAINST DRUGS ' 18 March 2001 emphasize " more
drug war."

In 1969, $65 million was spent by the Nixon administration on the drug
war; in 1982 the Reagan administration spent $1.65 billion; and in 1998
the Clinton administration requested $17.1 billion.

In 2000 General Barry McCaffrey raised it to $19.5 billion. ( Source:
Office of National Drug Control Policy, National Drug Control Strategy,
Budget Summary, p. 5, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office
). State and local governments will spend another 20 billion per year!
That is an astonishing $634 per second--every day of the year! How much
more "redoubling" can the tax payer afford?

The study " Shoveling up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State
Budgets" by Joseph A. Califano Jr. of the National Center on Addiction
and Substance Abuse stated that 4% goes to rehabilitation ( 29 Jan. 2001
). That means 96 cents of every dollar goes to law enforcement, customs,
the prison industry, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, and the DEA?

Larry Seguin, Lisbon, New York

DIFFERENT VIEWS

Dear Editor;

The Editor and District Attorney Jerry Richards seem upset that an
increasing number of people are writing the newspaper to express their
dissatisfaction with the current drug policies.

Because our perspective differs from these gentlemen we are labeled
pro-drug use, even though many members of the group are professional
people such as retired law-enforcement, judges, business owners, and
senior citizens, all of whom are upstanding citizens in their community.

The editor and Mr. Richards claim that redoubling our current efforts is
the way to handle our drug problems.

We at ReconsiDer feel that after 30 years of a failed drug war
alternative approaches must be considered. On March 30, 2000 Clarkson
University hosted a debate on drug policy.

St. Lawrence County District Attorney Jerry Richards and Potsdam Police
Lt. John Kaplan opposed Gene Tinelli M.D. Ph.D., and retired Tonawanda
Police Captain Peter Christ. Neither the district attorney or the
Ogdensburg newspaper editor were in attendance. Never the less both
sides made valid points and addressed their fears and concerns in a
civil manner.

Perhaps it would be more productive for both sides if we discussed our
contrasting perspectives in another debate or forum.

Lee Monnet, Ogdensburg, New York

CRITICIZES EDITORIAL

To The Editor:

Your March 17 editorial "Casualties of the Drug War" relies on faulty
arguments in an attempt to scuttle reform of drug policy. You claim
that a legally-regulated market for currently illegal drugs will cause
more problems than the organized crime-controlled unregulated market
created by current law. But look at how current law greatly multiplies
the personal and social costs of recreational drug use:

1. Organized crime seizes control over the market, displacing
regulations on retailers that would have avoided overdoses adulterations
and sales to (and by) minors. How many alcohol seekers were poisoned by
the wood alcohol they bought during prohibition? Definitely more than
were dissuaded from drinking! Users of heroin and other drugs today are
more at risk by the violence of the black market (see "devastating
effect of prohibition #2 below) and the lack of dosage and purity
controls than the inherent dangers of the substance. Doesn't all this
have a "devastating effect on our community" as well?

2. Illegality leads to extortionist prices and quick riches for
risk-taking dealers, as it leads to unnecessary impoverishment of
addicts, street-shootings instead of court enforcement of business
contracts, and turf wars by dealers that turn neighborhoods into
free-fire zones.

This is not caused by drugs, but rather by the search for profit in a
prohibited market. Make bread illegal and the same violence and
extortion will dominate that market.

3. Prohibition creates pressure on suppliers to concentrate their
product in forms easier to smuggle and conceal. Beer becomes whisky,
coca-cola becomes powder and then crack, and public health and safety
are thereby driven that much further from the realm of users of these
substances. Though the anti-drug crusaders, in their
self-righteousness, may imagine that most drug users are irrational and
self-destructive, the reality is that most of them are "People Like
Us." Some drinkers drink to destroy themselves, the vast majority
prefer to drink safely and happily and therefore moderate their
drinking. The majority of recreational drug users would prefer to do
the same. Normal people have good instincts for self-preservation.
Thus, without much pressure from the government, we have seen in recent
years a powerful trend toward weaker versions of legal drugs, wine
coolers in place of distilled spirits, filtered cigarettes low in tar
and nicotine, even decaffeinated coffee and tea. On the whole, the trend
toward safer dosages of legal drugs gives massive testimony to the
rationality of normal people. But under current law, no such trend is
possible for illegal drugs. The war on drugs is a war on rational
behavior by drug users. With illegal drugs the trend is accelerating in
the wrong direction, not because of the thrill-seeking or
self-destructive minority, but because of the dynamics of the markets
for contraband.

Your editorial states that ending prohibition "would send a wrong
message to our young people that they can find refuge from their
problems and reality through artificial chemicals." If this is really
the goal, then where is the call for banning pharmaceutical
advertisements? Prozac and Viagra are big business. Where is the drive
to prohibit adult use of alcohol and tobacco? Alcohol is more dangerous
than heroin, it is as dangerous as cocaine, and marijuana is much safer
than alcohol or tobacco. There is something morally hollow in these
prohibitionist arguments for war on only some drugs.

And there is the even deeper philosophical problem in the argument that
government should make personal decisions about what is health and what
is desirable for the individual, and that even behaviors that are
acceptable for adults should be banned in order to "send children a
message." By this logic, adults should be banned from driving, having
sex, drinking alcohol, purchasing firearms...basically anything that is
deemed unacceptable for children. The ultimate logic of this
jurisprudence is the denial of the existence of adults at all! Or of a
realm of personal freedom for adults to enjoy "liberty and the pursuit
of happiness." Now what kind of message does that give to children
about the relationship between the state and the individual?

There are recreational, relaxational, and spiritual reasons people take
drugs, and there is nothing inherently wrong with it. Do people take
caffeine for medical reason? And while the FDA refuses to acknowledge
the medical benefits of cannabis for hundreds of thousands of patients,
marijuana smokers know there are many other possible benefits, including
religious or spiritual. Certainly the recreational use of cannabis
incurs far less personal or social costs than does comparable use of
alcohol.

People do not make decisions about drugs as if they were legal
questions. People choose which drugs they take based on the effects
they seek and the information they have. So perhaps honest drug
education is the answer, and a legally regulated, are-restricted market
has got to be better than the Mafia distribution and youthful retailers
created by the prohibition

William Smith, Clinton, Conn.