SAME DRUGS, SAME DANGERS

In "Learning to Live With Drugs" [op-ed, Nov. 2], Ethan Nadelmann makes a
clever argument for the legalization of illicit narcotics through the
Trojan horse of "harm reduction." Nadelmann is director of the Lindesmith
Center, which your paper describes as "a drug policy institute with offices
in New York and San Francisco." Your paper also should have noted that the
Lindesmith Center is a project of George Soros's Open Society Institute,
which has spent $20 million trying to change how Americans look at illegal
drugs.

Treating illicit drugs as benign would take us back to the late 19th
century, before the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was enacted, when patent
medicines were laced with dangerous drugs.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers sold their narcotics through inaccurate
advertising at the expense of the general welfare and the poor. Reformers
realized then that powerful, addictive narcotics could act as a terrible
form of regressive tax - not only transferring wealth to an elite group of
manufacturers but also robbing the poor underclass of the ability to
generate income and savings and lead productive lives.

Experience demonstrates that with the legalization of drugs the rate of
addiction increases.

Furthermore, government becomes more bureaucratic, because legalization
really means regulation. Children and other groups such as the military and
key service providers would remain prohibited from using drugs and thus
would continue to be targets for illegal traffickers and pushers.

Nadelmann argues that "those who consume drugs without hurting others
should not be of government concern." According to the 1992 Sourcebook of
Criminal Justice Statistics, the rate of offenses committed under the
influence of drugs was almost double the rate of offenses committed in
order to buy drugs.

Prisoners were under the influence of drugs at the time of offense for 28.2
percent of violent offenses, 35.4 percent of property offenses, 36.9
percent of drug offenses and 18 percent of public order offenses. These
statistics underscore the fact that drug-related crimes would not diminish
with legalization.

Treating narcotic drug use as benign and non-predatory sends confusing
messages to societies attempting to protect their children from
debilitating addictions. The reformers in the early 20th century
courageously exposed these problems long ago.

David C. Jordan

The writer is a professor at the University of Virginia.