RUINED LIVES

To the editor:

A recent editorial opposing a proposed Orange County ordinance that
would impound cars found to contain even small amounts of marijuana
asked whether we should risk ruining people's lives over drugs? Quite
honestly, this is what the drug war is about: ruining people's lives.

It isn't enough that drug abuse itself can ruin a person's life. The
zealots (led by politicians and the law-enforcement community) have
fed us reams of anti-drug propaganda since the Nixon administration
and are so frustrated at their abysmal failure to stop Americans from
taking illegal drugs that their goal today actually is to ruin the
lives of everyone caught with drugs -- even such a minuscule amount as
one joint. Take their cars! Keep them from sports! Don't let them get
a decent job! Just lock 'em up and throw away the key!

Why else are the prisons today packed with drug convictions? Why else
would the politicians cry out for automobile or property seizures? Or,
for random drug tests of employees or high-school students?

This war on drugs is a mindless social policy meant to ruin the lives
of unfortunate Americans who need care more than incarceration.

GEORGE HOOK
Altamonte Springs