PUSH FOR PROFITS KILLING THE KIDS

To the Editor:

I was saddened to read of yet another young life lost to drug abuse
in the article, "Amid honest admissions, denials, drug-related deaths
keep on rising" (Sep. 24). The article mentioned that many arrested
in Operation Painkiller were recent high school graduates. No
surprise, the young are most likely to abuse drugs.

How can we prevent these problems and keep drugs away from kids?

The drug war has failed. Nearly 40 years after then President Richard
Nixon declared a war on drugs, no visible progress has been made
unless you count increasing budgets (estimated at $69 billion per
year) or increasing prison population (the U.S. now has the highest
imprisonment rate in the world). We should legalize and regulate drugs.

Drugs are sold to kids because there are awesome profits to be made
selling drugs and drug dealers don't ask for I.D.When heroin was
legal in the U.S., it was cheaper than aspirin.

Without this obscene profit and with regulated stores selling only to
those 21 or older, we could keep drugs away from those most
susceptible to use, our youth.

JESSE ALT

Baltimore