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