WAR ON DRUGS

* Re "Rumsfeld Tells Senators His Views on Drug War," Jan. 12: Secretary of
Defense-designate Donald Rumsfeld hits the target by pointing out that we
can only win this "drug war" by working on the demand instead of the supply
side.

Just picture a poor peasant in the Andes etching out a subsistence living
at an altitude often exceeding the peak of the Mammoth Mountain. He is now
offered a chance to make a sum exceeding his potential lifetime earnings.
Aside from the fact that he has little chance of getting caught, this also
poses no ethical concern for him, since chewing coca leaves or drinking a
tea brewed from them is as natural to him as a Starbucks brew is to us.

I strongly believe that the major reason why we have not been able to even
dent the illegal drug trade is that we have been fighting the wrong parties
all along. The recent passage of an initiative to offer treatment instead
of jail time to drug offenders is a snail's step in the right direction.
What is urgently needed is finding less harmful or completely harmless
substitutes to treat these addictions. We must open our eyes and start to
view most drug addiction as a biochemical or genetic defect instead of
simply a character deficiency or moral degradation.

John T. Chiu, MD, Newport Beach