USERS 'NOT LIKE YOU AND ME'

For several months we have endured letters to the editor, which insist that
drugs are all right and we should just legalize them and the world we live
in will become a better place. My obvious question is, "a better place for
who?"

Last Sunday's (Jan. 14), letters to the editor, in The Daily Times, came
from all over the USA, most of them advocating legalization of drugs. Have
people really thought about the consequences of making drugs legal? Would
we really be unconcerned, if the bus driver who picks up our little
children, could puff a legal marijuana cigarette while navigating the bus
to the schoolhouse?

If the bus had an accident, and the firefighters and EMT rescuers arrived
smelling of wine, and had needle marks on their arms, would we find that
upsetting? Could we endure, police officers on drugs, stopping our kids,
who were coming home from a date, and giving them a ticket for some offense?

When the kids went to court to have their case heard, would we feel more
comfortable with lawyers and a judge who had just puffed a "legal" joint in
his chambers, before coming out to render a sage legal decision? Would you
feel safer when you fly, knowing that pilots could use those legal drugs,
before they climbed into the cockpit?

I don't think rational people believe that legalizing drugs for private use
is all right, any more than they believe that incest is okay, (so long as
it happens in the privacy of the home).

This "don't ask, don't tell" trash is getting tiresome. Most people manage
life without drugs, and those who can't cope without drugs probably should
be in a managed care environment, where they can get their drugs - and
their room and board - at taxpayer expense.

Please don't try to sell me on the idea that druggers and dopers and drunks
are "just like you and me."

Bruce L. Salisbury

Aztec