WHY BE HARSH?

In response to Oscar Garner's July 30 letter, even in countries where
capital punishment is administered for drug crimes, the drug problem still
persists - even in China (a country Mr. Garner apparently adores).

Governments have come and gone in Asia, but the opium trade is as stable as
it was during the Bronze Age. I would like Mr. Garner to explain where and
at what point in history drugs were both "legal and free" and why that
solution failed.

Mr. Garner's perversion of the law of natural selection is closer in ethos
to that of Nazism, whose adherents cheerfully executed those whom the state
had deemed "weak." In natural selection, the fittest are not necessarily
the strongest - fitness is a function of both survival and reproduction.

Apparently, Mr. Garner believes he is wise enough to choose who should and
should not be allowed to reproduce. That is one of the most un-American
things I have ever read.

While Mr. Garner cites the dangers of operating an automobile while under
the influence of an intoxicant, he fails to recognize that the one
intoxicant most often associated with automobile accidents (and violent
crime) is 100 percent legal. It is, of course, alcohol. If, as Mr. Garner
believes, the responsibility of governmental entities is to protect us from
consuming intoxicating substances, then alcohol, too, should be criminalized.

People have much more to fear from "atom bombs" than any drug. Anyone who
says differently is sincerely deluded.

America can either be free or drug-free. We can't have it both ways.

ROBERT R. POORE
Clearwater, Fla.