'DRUG WAR' LOSING GROUND

Re: "Justice system has a critical role in drug treatment," Viewpoints,
Feb. 25.

William Bennett says "Prevention ... entails making drugs scarcer, more
expensive and less pure. When drugs are more readily available, more people
try them and more people become addicted."

If making drugs scarcer, more expensive and less pure is the measure of
success of the drug war, it should be brought to a screeching halt. Since
Richard Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973, illegal
drugs have become more available, less expensive and more pure. Most people
in Plano had never known anyone who used heroin in 1973. Now their kids buy
heroin so pure it can be smoked instead of injected.

Drug prohibition does make drug purity unreliable. During alcohol
prohibition teenagers died from drinking poison bootleg. Today the drug of
choice for teenagers is MDMA (ecstasy). By far the greatest danger in using
ecstasy is that the tablet won't be ecstasy. The risks of taking/using a
known substance are manageable, primarily exhaustion and dehydration in the
case of MDMA. But death has occurred when kids inadvertently bought PMA or
PMMA and heat stroke has occurred when dextromethorphan was substituted.

There is no evidence that more people would become addicted if drugs were
legally available. The rate of addiction to narcotics remained relatively
stable throughout the 20th century regardless of the law. The Dutch are
famous for their legal marijuana yet their rate of marijuana use is less
than ours and their rate of heroin addiction is one-third of ours.

Drug prohibition has done none of the things that Mr. Bennett claims he
wants. Instead it has endangered the American people by fostering crime,
corruption and violence and created the largest, most expensive prison
system the world has ever known.

SUZANNE WILLS
Drug Policy Forum of Texas
Dallas