LEGALIZATION DEBATE, PRUDENT DRUG POLICY LIES IN MIDDLE

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

James Q. Wilson's June 18 Commentary article, "Drug Legalization Has
Its Pitfalls," discusses the pitfalls of drug legalization but fails
to consider anything other than total, all-out legalization. This is
misleading. I don't think anyone in the drug-policy reform movement
wants to see advertisements calling upon TV viewers to run down to the
convenience store to buy crack. There is a middle ground between
all-out legalization and drug prohibition. By registering hard-drug
addicts and providing standardized doses in a treatment setting, we
could eliminate the public health problems associated with addiction.
For example, the high prevalence of HIV among intravenous drug users
is a direct result of zero-tolerance drug policies that prohibit the
sale of needles.

More important, organized crime would lose a lucrative client base.
This would render illegal drug trafficking unprofitable, destroy the
black market, and thereby spare future generations the horror of addiction.

As for marijuana, the plant should be legalized for adults. First of
all, minors have an easier time purchasing pot than beer. Drug dealers
don't ID for age. Second, the risk factor cited by Wilson actually
increases the appeal of marijuana among rebellious adolescents.

Finally, marijuana currently provides the black-market connections
that introduce youth to harder drugs. As counterintuitive as it may
seem, legalizing marijuana would both limit access and close the
gateway to harder drugs.

Robert Sharpe.
Washington, D.C.

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

To debunk James Q. Wilson's words in brief: Please consider that
regulation equals control, but prohibition equals no control.

Wilson doesn't live in the same world as you and I. In his world the
jails aren't filled with drug users. In his world millions of children
aren't in foster care while their parents do hard time for minor drug
offenses. In his world those who would use drugs actually are
dissuaded from doing so by "just saying no."

In his world I never would be whistled at in the middle of the night
by crack and heroin dealers downtown. In his world those who don't use
drugs now would do so only if they were patted on the head and told it
was OK. Of course he and his friends wouldn't do so; it is just those
other people.

I am a disabled veteran and a medical marijuana user. Despite the fact
I can't tolerate the store-bought marijuana called marinol that makes
me sicker than I already am, the government of Virginia would label me
a drug abuser if I were caught with the generic leafy kind of
marijuana. Am I a "barbarian" as described by Wilson because I cannot
survive without drugs?

I am a gentlemen, so I cannot say what I really think of Wilson;
besides, my mother taught me that if I don't have anything nice to
say, I should say nothing at all.

Michael Krawitz.
Elliston.

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

Shame on you for reprinting James Q. Wilson's piece on drug
legalization without some serious editing. Even though Wilson
summarizes an interesting procedure for "Changes in Handling
Offenders," he makes so many conclusions that would be difficult to
support with evidence in the rest of his article that he loses his
credibility. His basic assumption that legalization can mean only
making hard drugs readily available -- say, at all-night convenience
stores -- at reasonable prices is ridiculous.

"Legalizing" drugs would be a terrible thing to have to do. It would
need to involve a system with all kinds of checks and controls. It
might profit from the incorporation of a program like the one being
promoted by Mark Kleiman, whom Wilson cites.

But to talk about legalization as meaning "letting the price fall to
its competitive rate" is ludicrous and only made worse by considering
"advertising costs." He might as well suggest distributing free
samples in schools.

Another irresponsible statement is that "if these drugs were sold
legally . . . the total number of users would increase sharply." Even
if he said merely, "would increase," he is drawing a conclusion from
his personal beliefs and not from any data or a thoughtful analysis of
people's behavior.

I also think your overline for the article's title, "No Panacea," does
not show any great thought on your part. I doubt if any person who is
concerned in any way about drug use and control ever would think of
the word "panacea" in connection with drug legalization.

John R. McKlveen.
Colonial Heights.

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

I couldn't count the number of times someone has told me how to "win"
the drug war. "Just do what they did in China," has been said so many
times.

What China did was brazenly to execute all the drug users it could
round up in the highly publicized climax of the Opium War around the
turn of the century. It still does a lot of that, and now I am reading
it still has a serious drug problem ["U.S., China Cooperate," June
20].

The last time I saw this conventional wisdom in print was only a few
years ago when no less than Newt Gingrich suggested that we could beat
the drug problem with an all-out assault, China style.

If this technique is so successful, then why is U.S. Drug Czar Barry
McCaffrey in China for talks on how to deal with their 800,000
"registered" drug addicts?

Could it be that the enemy in the drug war is as basic as human
nature? Can we win a war on being human?

Early Bender-Werth.
Crewe.