Re: "Alcohol miscast," Letters, Jan. 25.

I don't envy Helen Gatewood's duty (as director of the International
Association of Alcohol Beverage Distributors Inc.) to defend her products'
"good name." However, as an American citizen, I feel it's my duty to point
out a few facts about the carnage alcohol inflicts upon our society, such
as:

An estimated 200,000 directly related deaths per year. An estimated 2.2
million traffic accidents with alcohol involved harming 1.3 million
innocents, with over 16,000 deaths in 1995 alone.

$44 billion annual costs attributed to traffic injuries alone, with the
overall health costs in the hundreds of billions.

55 percent of all crimes involve alcohol, with alcohol involved in about
80 percent of all homicides, 70 percent of serious assaults, 50 percent
of forcible rapes, and 72 percent of robberies annually (Issues for the
American Public, the American Assembly, Columbia University).

Marijuana, by contrast, has yet to generate a single documented death,
yet law enforcers think nothing of locking up nonviolent pot smokers
with hardened criminals for five to 10 years, then rewarding themselves
for a good day's work with a round of physiologically devastating
alcoholic beverages, then driving home.

Until people like Ms. Gatewood begin calling "a spade a spade," I'll
continue to regard them as nothing more than legalized drug pushers.

R. VLAHOS,
Arlington, Va.