CAN'T WE HAVE COMMON SENSE DRUG POLICY?

Hopefully common sense national legislation will result form George W.
Bush's alleged use of illegal drugs.

Look, alcohol and tobacco are drugs. So how ridiculous it would be if we
locked up all beer drinkers and smokers. The cost to the nation from alcohol
and tobacco in lives, suffering and cost is many times that from illegal
drugs. And making the use of cocaine a felony is ridiculous.

Sellers, not users (unless they are endangering others such as driving under
the influence) are the ones who should be locked up; and those who sell
illegal drugs to minors should be given much harsher sentences.

We just need to take a long, honest, straightforward look at our antiquated
illegal drug laws. First of all, we should accept the fact that drug
addiction is a sickness, an incurable disease of the brain; and, second, we
should provide counseling for all drug addicts.

We should pardon all who are now in our jails and prisons simply for using
illegal drugs providing they agree to undergo drug counseling. Just think
how much money, and, yes, lives, this would save.

We should also intensify drug education in all of our public and private
schools, beginning in the first grades.

And by all means it is past time that we accept this adage as the absolute
truth: "Where there is a demand for anything, including illegal drugs, there
will be a supply for that anything, including illegal drugs." Thus, we
should change our emphasis on illegal drugs from the supply side to the
demand side.

Let the debate on illegal drugs begin and let people like George W. Bush and
New Mexico Gov. Gary E. Johnson, an admitted former user of cocaine, as well
as others participate in this debate.

Milton A. Braun, Dallas, Texas