DRUG PROHIBITION IS A COUNTERPRODUCTIVE POLICY

I write in response to your recent Page One, headlined "Bold drug dealers
rule neighborhood."

Because America's misguided drug crusaders have deceived themselves and the
public, we are led to believe that outlaw drug dealing is an unavoidable
fact of life.

What our lunatic drug warriors never mention is that no one was robbing,
whoring and murdering over drugs when addicts could buy all of the heroin,
cocaine, morphine, opium and anything else they wanted cheaply and legally.

When drugs were legal, addicts held regular employment, raised decent
families and were indistinguishable from their teetotaling neighbors.
Overdoses were virtually unheard of when addicts used cheap pure Bayer
Heroin instead of the expensive toxic potions that prohibition puts on the
streets. (See: Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm.)

Our delirious prohibitionists never admit that their insane drug laws are
100 percent responsible for street-corner drug dealing and the crime,
violence and death that go along with it. Without prohibition laws, outlaw
drug traffickers would be out of business overnight. Anyone having doubts
only needs to check the history of prohibition.

Huntington City Councilman Larry Patterson admits that he doesn't know how
to make drug prohibition work, but insists that "the answer isn't doing
nothing." However, we were better off in every category before drugs were
outlawed. Drug prohibition is a counterproductive policy that causes a
hundred times the troubles that drugs by themselves ever did.

The only way to end our self-created drug problems is to end a disastrous
drug war.

Redford Givens

San Francisco

NEIGHBORHOOD'S DRUG PROBLEM AFFECTS SCHOOL

We students here at Spring Hill Elementary feel our neighborhood has a
major drug problem that affects our community. Many students are afraid of
walking to and from school because they have to walk past drug users and
dealers. Even when we are at home, it is dangerous to play outside. We
think police can do a better job. For example, if they could patrol more
often, maybe our community would be safer. Our neighborhood needs to be
drug free.

Bobby Crawford, Ian O'Connell, Rosetta Tillet, Courtney Crabtree, Angelina
Russo, Danielle Turner, Tyler Moore, Mark Chandler and Meranda McComas

Fifth-grade class Spring Hill Elementary