STATE'S DO-NOTHING SENATORS LEAVE DRUG PLAGUE UNCHECKED

I've noted with interest The Sun's series of editorials dealing with the
long-term neglect by Maryland elected officials of probation violations and
lax sentences in Baltimore City ("Violent crime pays in city of soft
sentences," editorial, Dec. 18). The Sun knows, as I do as a lawyer for 27
years, that the underlying cause of these problems is the distribution and
use of mind-altering illegal drugs in Baltimore. Maryland's two U.S.
senators, Paul S. Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski, were elected to their
posts in 1976 and 1986, respectively. They both live in Baltimore, where
they have been surrounded on a daily basis by this drug problem. What
successful initiatives has either ever launched to interdict the flow of
drugs into the city?

Using the editorial hammer, while welcome, seems a trifle disingenuous as
The Sun has endorsed these do-nothing-on-drugs senators without interruption.

Robin Ficker Boyds