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