LOOK FOR ANOTHER DRUG PROBLEM TO BE MISHANDLED

To the editor:

"Now is time to head off drug scourge" (Advocate editorial, Dec. 9)
is yet another example of the insanity by our authorities in a long
line of insane acts.

Let us not forget alcohol, cannabis, heroin, cocaine and the success
we had with keeping these drugs off the street. Now, methamphetamine.

The authorities are using the same tactics to combat meth as they
used with all the other illegal drugs. Yet there are more drugs at
cheaper prices on our streets than ever before. Insanity is doing the
same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

In sports, if a center-fielder drops the fly ball, you can't pretend
he didn't. There's also an awareness of patterns - a relationship
between what has gone before and what is to come that is so strong in
sports coverage that doesn't seem to be there in news reporting.

The authorities and, for the most part, the media have dropped the
ball and are pretending they haven't dropped the ball. Every time the
authorities announce a new policy on a so-called new drug or the
reappearance of one, we do the same old thing.

I raised this issue during my campaign for governor on the Green
Party ticket. The press, for the most part, and other candidates
avoided this issue. History says "we are doomed to make the same
mistakes over and over again."

Well, here we go again with methamphetamine. Let's stop pretending
that the authorities have not dropped the ball.

Clifford Wallace Thornton Jr.

Hartford