NO BETTER OFF WITH DRUG WAR

"Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?" We hear this
question over and over during the debates and speeches in the campaigns.
But, let us grant that Vice President Gore, Govs. Bush and Knowles and
others may have had some "youthful indiscretions" regarding marijuana use
or "experimented" with drugs during their young lives. With each
politician's opposition to decriminalization of individual choice in this
matter and gleeful zealousness in continuing the insanity of a 30-year-long
"drug war," with absolutely no decrease in national usage, let us ask this
question of those who would lead us: Would you be better off today if, as a
young person, you had spent 10 years of your life in prison?

- -- Ron Holmstrom

Anchorage