DRUG WAR 'FAILURE'

The Figure of 52,000 Americans killed by criminalised drugs annually (News,
last week) comes from a study General McCaffrey commissioned but which he
will not release.

The American National Center for Health Statistics records "14,843 deaths
from drug-induced causes in 1996". The accepted figure for illegal drug
deaths is 3,000-10,000.

The drug war is an unmitigated disaster in the United States. The annual
$18 billion federal drug war budget and overall $50 billion national
spending have given us paramilitary-style policing, racist enforcement,
curtailed civil liberties, jam-packed prisons, police corruption, dangerous
streets, a huge bureaucracy that is propagandistic and self-perpetuating,
persecution of patients who would benefit from medicinal marijuana and
opiates, increased Aids infections, and no decrease in hard-core drug
abusers to show for it all.

Paul Bischke
Policy Reform Group of Minnesota