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.

Richard Marshner,
East Lake