$28,500 COCAINE PROBLEM REFLECTS LOGIC PROBLEMS

"Love," As William Shakespeare Observed, "Is Blind."

Chester Stankiewicz of Bethlehem Township, it was reported in
Monday's paper, patted his granddaughter on the arm and told
Northampton County Judge Anthony Beltrami what a fine person she is.

I have six granddaughters, and I love them dearly, but if one of them
swiped $28,500 from me to buy cocaine, I'd be perturbed. While I
might ask a judge not to put her in the clink, I would not be
lovingly patting her arm as I begged.

As it happens, Beltrami was not in the mood to pat Stankiewicz's
granddaughter's arm, either. He sent Tina Hartranft, 35, to jail for
12 to 24 months.

The story said Hartranft forged her grandfather's name on 38 checks
between Dec. 7 and Feb. 26 (that's 82 days) for the $28,500, and
pleaded guilty to theft in August. Stankiewicz, however, had only
praise for his granddaughter.

"She's a very good kid," he was quoted as saying to the judge, and
the "insidious drug" cocaine forced her to steal his money.
Hartranft, the story said, sobbed in court, blaming the whole mess on
her drug addiction (not on herself).

This case speaks volumes about the drug problem and how society deals with it.

The first lesson in logic that screams at us involves the $28,500.
Somebody is $28,500 richer, minus small procurement costs, just from
Hartranft's business over 82 days.

How do you suppose that message resonates with young punks who would
like to get rich quick with a minimum of brains or work? Eighty
percent of the people in American prisons are there for drug-related
crimes. We could double the number of people we incarcerate and it
would not put the slightest dent in a trade boasting those kinds of profits.

When cocaine was legal, people ignored it except when used in patent
medicines or soft drinks. (Where do you think Coca-Cola got its
name?) When it was legal, as I have often noted, cocaine was cheaper
per pound than soap.

At today's street value, $28,500 buys only a portion of a pound. If
cocaine prices returned to where they were when it was legal, a full
pound would fetch drug dealers around $2 or $3. Can you picture the
dealers remaining in business with those prices?

The war on drugs is not a war on drugs. Is is a war designed to make
drug dealers, and those they bribe, rich.

The other part of Monday's story that speaks volumes is the portrayal
of junkies as helpless slaves to addiction.

The only illegal drug I ever tried was marijuana, and I did not care
for it. So I cannot say much about addiction from a personal standpoint.

Nevertheless, I have met many people involved in illegal drug
trafficking and use.

More significantly, my father spent his last years running the
athletic program at the Masten Park Rehabilitation Center in Buffalo,
where addicts were given methadone to wean them from heroin.

He told me he scoffed at the addicts when they first told him his
cigarettes were more addictive than heroin, but he soon learned they
were right. Addicts easily stop using heroin when they know they
might be tested soon, or when they go where drugs are not available.
My father was never able to quit using cigarettes; they were in his
pocket when his heart quit at Masten Park.

People do not use heroin or cocaine because addictions are
overpowering; they use those and other drugs because they like them
- -- and when they get caught, they all say they could not help themselves.

Anti-drug crusaders seek to fan hysteria by screeching about the
ferocious power of addiction and the other horrors of drug abuse.
Sadly, all that accomplishes is to boost the forbidden fruit appeal,
which boosts the prices.

Love may be blind, but logic should not be.

paul.carpenter@mcall.com