LAND OF JAILERS

SAN FRANCISCO -- Your Jan. 18 editorial "Just say `no' to Big Brother"
neglected to mention that a lunatic drug prohibition policy has made
the United States the world leader in incarceration. And all because
of victimless "drug crimes."

It is moronic beyond belief that we are sacrificing the future of our
country over a prohibition scheme that has never worked for anything,
anywhere, anytime.

The prohibitionists have created a disaster that never existed in any
form before they began meddling because no one was robbing, whoring
and murdering over drugs when addicts could buy all of the heroin,
cocaine, morphine, opium and anything else they wanted cheaply and
legally at the corner pharmacy.

When drugs were legal, addicts held regular employment, raised decent
families and were indistinguishable from their teetotaling neighbors.

Overdoses were virtually unheard of when addicts used cheap, pure
Bayer Heroin instead of the expensive toxic potions prohibition puts
on the streets.

Where drug crime was unheard of we now have prisons overflowing with
drug users. Where addicts lived normal lives, we have hundreds of
thousands of shattered families.

Where overdoses were extremely rare we have tens of thousands of drug
deaths every year. The addiction rate is now five times greater than
when we had no laws at all, and 19-year-olds are the fastest growing
group of heroin users.

It's long past time to end a disastrous drug crusade that threatens to
turn us into a nation of jailers instead of being the land of the free.

Redford Givens