DRUG ADDICTS NEED TREATMENT, WE NEED WINNABLE WAR

With four Page One stories in as many days, it is clear that the drug war
sells newspapers. Perhaps that is why the Chronicle consistently
editorializes in favor of continuing our nation's failed policy of drug
prohibition. Please check the archives from 1929 to see if the Chronicle
likewise supported perpetuating alcohol prohibition after the Valentine's
Day Massacre. Then, as now, turf battles inevitably grow ever more
horrifying as the illegal business grows ever more lucrative. And because it
handed him an enormous, tax-free, unregulated industry, Al Capone loved
alcohol prohibition just as much as the Chronicle seems to love drug
prohibition.

As the Editorial Board taps away on computer keyboards to champion such
nonsense, they should realize there is blood on their hands. Editorials like
the Dec. 1, "Ciudad Juarez," serve only to prolong this unwinnable and
tragic drug war. On the issue of drug prohibition, the Chronicle is dead
wrong.

Art Smart, Houston