Two items in your editorial "Drug Legalization an Unnecessary
Surrender", of September 28th caught my eye.

First, you ask "Why give drug abusers license to feed their habit and
subject themselves and their families to the misery that illicit drugs
can bring to them?".

Do you believe the "misery" is rooted in the drugs themselves or in
their illegality? Before you answer, consider the opinion of two
experts, Dr. Jack E. Henningfield of the National Institute on Drug
Abuse and Dr. Neal L. Benowitz of the University of California at San
Francisco. They took the trouble to rank six common psychoactive substances.

Their individual rankings, while not identical, put at the top heroin,
alcohol and cocaine, and put at the bottom nicotine, marijuana and
caffeine, roughly in that order. Since these ranks put (legal) alcohol
with heroin and cocaine, and (illegal) marijuana with tobacco and
coffee, I submit that it is the illegality which causes most of the
misery.

Second, you seem to accept Mr. McCaffrey's assertion that the drug war
is working: "Drug czar Barry McCaffrey . . . has released a study
showing that drug use among young Americans has declined 13% since
1985; moreover, cocaine use has dropped 70% during that time. That
proves the nation's battle against illicit drugs is working, says McCaffrey."

This assertion is not false, but it is misleading. In fact all illegal
drugs, including cocaine, dropped very sharply from 1985 to 1992, but
have risen steadily since 1992 and now(1998) stand about 80% higher
than their 1992 levels, albeit still somewhat below their 1985 levels.
When drug use among young Americans rises 80% in six years, the drug
war cannot be said to be "working."

John G. Chase