U.S. DRUG WAR INFLICTS HIGHER CASUALTIES

So much for the draconian prison sentences that were supposed to wipe
out drug dealing in Michigan (“Neighbors live in terror as drug houses
flourish,” Dec. 19). Drug prohibition doesn’t work, no matter how hard
the police crack down or how many dealers are sent to prison.

The only hope people like John Westbrook have of ever reclaiming their
communities is by repealing the brain-dead drug laws that create crack
houses and street dealers in the first place. In a regulated market,
drug dealers could be zoned out of residential areas.

The violence related to an outlaw market is caused by turf wars, not
drug use. In a regulated market, disputes would be settled by
licensing boards and lawyers instead of Uzis and AK-47s.

It’s time to admit that our disastrous drug crusade is as big a
mistake as the noble experiment of alcohol prohibition in the 1920s
and 1930s.

Redford Givens,
San Francisco, Calif.

The Dec. 19 article “Neighbors live in terror as drug houses flourish”
and related stories revealed nothing new. Illegal drug activity
devastates neighborhoods.

One of this century’s finest thinkers, Nobel laureate Milton Friedman,
has long advocated a solution to the problem: legalize drugs. The
problem is that this is unlikely to happen. The reason is that both
sides of the law profit by the status quo. The dealers continue to
profit by marking up their products, while law enforcement officials’
salaries depend upon the illegality of dealers’ activities.

Meanwhile, the gullible public gets screwed, and innocent people
die.

Jerry Comeau
Highland, Mich.