PAST COCAINE USE SHOULD BE CAUSE TO END CANDIDACY

In a story about questions of cocaine use by Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the
Times referred to a poll that said more than 70 percent of the respondents
felt that past youthful indiscretions should be forgiven. I'm sure that the
thousands of young people from the Texas ghettos are truly sorry after being
sentenced to prison for possession of tiny amounts of cocaine by laws
vigorously backed by Gov. Bush.

This attitude underlines the incredible hypocrisy of the American people.
Middle class use of cocaine goes largely unpunished, but we build prisons
with money that should be used for education so that we can incarcerate
thousands of poor people for cocaine or crack cocaine use.

This is similar to our attitude of winking at widespread income tax cheating
but going ballistic over food stamp fraud.

There in no evidence that Gov. George W. Bush used cocaine, but if he did, I
believe he should immediately withdraw his candidacy.