IT'S TIME TO RIDE A NEW HORSE IN THE `DRUG WAR'

SO long as there is a market for illegal drugs and profit in selling
them, there will be a supply. Going after suppliers is idiotic, as is
jailing users. There is a market for these drugs because we have
failed to equip a portion of society with the skills to deal with the
realities of life. Drugs are a way to retreat from reality.

What is needed is to decriminalize drug use, regulate and tax drugs,
as Joanne Jacobs (Opinion, Oct. 14) and New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson
suggest, and provide users with drug treatment and life skills
education. While these steps will not eliminate drug use, they will
reduce the profit potential and amount of crime associated with drugs,
and provide the revenue to support wider scale prevention and treatment.

What is the probability that drugs will be decriminalized, regulated
and taxed? That is hard to say. There are strong vested interests in
the status quo. Change would admit that several generations of past
efforts have failed. There are many people who gain their livelihood
from the ``war on drugs.''

I am reminded of an old adage told me by one of my colleagues: ``If
the horse you have been riding dies, get off.'' Seems like sound
advice. Yet, many people who find themselves on a dead horse have tried:

Buying a stronger whip. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
Increasing the standards for riding a dead horse. Developing a new
style for riding dead horses.

None of these things deals with the basic problem.

Efforts up to now to stem the tide of drugs have been like trying to
ride a dead horse. They have been monstrously costly and monumentally
ineffective. It is now time to face reality, learn from the past, and
try something different.

Ian Jacobsen
Santa Clara