PROHIBITION IS THE PROBLEM

Editor -- Regarding the book review ``Battle Fatigue in the War on Drugs''
(March 14) by Steve Heilig:

What has failed is not the war on drugs but the philosophy of prohibition,
just as it failed many decades ago when alcohol was its target. A solution
to the ``drug problem'' will be possible when the political dialogue begins
to utter the truth about prohibition. Retaining prohibition while shifting
funds from incarceration to treatment will merely be changing the signs on
the doors from ``penitentiary'' to ``treatment center.'' And the persecution
of the minority who prefer pot over booze will continue, perhaps with a
``kinder, gentler'' aspect, but it will remain a persecution nonetheless.

PETER WEBSTER International Journal of Drug Policy, Le Cannet, France