I doubt that it is possible to find a better description of why the
war on drugs continues than was given by Myron Von Hollingsworth in
his Oct. 11 letter, "Criminals winning the drug war."

"Maybe the drug war-mongering politicians are required to adhere to
the party line of prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the
prison industrial complex, the drug-testing industry, the INS, the
CIA, the FBI, the DEA and the politicians themselves can't live
without the budget justification, not to mention the invisible
profits, bribery, corruption and forfeiture benefits that prohibition
affords them."

The only possible inaccuracy in that statement would be the word
"maybe."

Mr. Von Hollingsworth's term for those who push this war, "drug
war-mongering politicians," is brilliant, although I prefer the label
that fits both the politicians and the bureaucrats who have found
their own niche in the drug market: "Anti-drug lords" who are every
bit the danger to society as the drug lords themselves.

I commend Mr. Von Hollingsworth for his straightforward description of
this tyranny we call the drug war.

It is honorable citizens like himself who will eventually wake the
masses to recognize not only this tyranny, but the many that emanate
from Washington and are mandated to states and local
jurisdictions.

It is, after all, the war on drugs that breeds contempt within law
enforcement for citizens' civil rights through disregard for
individual privacy, right to property, and many other rights defined
and declared as inalienable by our Constitution. Even the most basic
right, the right to life, has been deemed to be forfeitable by the
anti-drug lords who wage this war.

R.L. Root
Westminster, Calif.