INSIDE DOPE

To the editor:

I'd like to add a postscript to Hendrik Hertzerg's February 7th
Comment about the futile War on Drugs. In 1998, Dr. David Satcher, the
Surgeon General, estimated the annual number of deaths in the United
States due to tobacco-related diseases to be four hundred thousand. In
1996, according to the Naional Safety Council. a public-policy group,
the total number of deaths in this country caused by opiates and other
narcotics was 2,075. Thus, politicians cannot be seriously worried
about the hazards of drug use. There muste be another reason for
locking up hundreds of thousands of people - disproportionately black
and Hispanic - for nonviolent, victimless "crimes."

MARVIN MANDELL
W. Roxbury, Mass.