THE PROBLEMS OF DRUG PROHIBITION

Re: "War on drugs" corrupts justice, Jan. 6.

I read with a good deal of interest William Raspberry's column, and I have
to say I couldn't agree with him more. When are we going to stop trying to
legislate morality? Drug users harm no one but themselves. However, with
our current laws everyone bears the brunt of their addictions.
Approximately 40 percent of our prison occupants are drug users or peddlers
who did no harm to anyone but themselves at a tremendous cost to all the
rest of us.

The enforcement of the current "drug" laws has made drug peddling one of
the most profitable "professions." A law officer, for example, can make the
equivalent of a year's salary just by turning his head the other way during
a sale, and the profitability prompts "pushers" to solicit usage among
children and others who otherwise would not be tempted.

When a teenager can be incarcerated for a lengthy prison term merely for
the possession of a tiny amount of a "controlled substance," his term in
jail many times makes a criminal out of an otherwise potentially model
citizen.

I grew up in the "Prohibition era" and observed firsthand the havoc caused
by the criminal element, the Capones, etc., that it spawned. And it did
nothing to deter the use of alcohol. In fact, alcohol was, if anything,
more available than before, as perhaps drugs are now. My own father, for
example, made his own beer. After the repeal of Prohibition there was no
surge in abuse as the doomsayers had predicted, and the tax revenue from
the sale of the beverages was a welcome addition to the public coffers.

All of us would be better off if we spent this money on rehabilitating
those already addicted and punished only those whose addiction harmed
others as we do now with alcoholics. We would be better off not only
socially, but financially as well.

Donald F. Murphy, Dunedin