In response to Marc J. Sirois’ article on “Why America has lost its
war on drugs,” and recent articles in other newspapers about Al Gore’s
announcement that America has spiritual problems.

Politicians have spiritual problems. It seems that people like Al
Gore, Bill McCollum, and (of course) B.J. Clinton are the ones with
the

“Spiritual Problem.” Why don’t they leave us and our young people
alone? Typical of the politicians of today, they are jumping on the
severe-punishment anti-constitution bandwagon to build their careers
by claiming this war on our rights (oops, “war on drugs”) is “for the
kids.” Wouldn’t want to appear soft on crime, wouldja Al? How about it
Bill? Joe Stalin and Adolf Hitler would be proud of your lack of mercy.

As I remember, Al and Tipper are proud sponsors of censorship - you
remember, trying to ban obscene language in music? Are you satisfied
with the warning labels on the compact disks our kids buy? Let’s elect
Al president so he and Tipper can chisel away more of our rights to
help create an illusion of “security” and “propriety.”

It always surprises me that the government, which wants to control and
contain people as much as possible, is against marijuana. Don’t they
know anything? Pot-smokers are non-violent people that tend to stay
home and keep to themselves - a picture of complacency.

Are the money and power issues from elsewhere so powerful that this
has been forgotten? All this stupid war on drugs is doing is costing
taxpayers billions of dollars, and incarcerating many responsible,
tax-paying, and harmless adults. Even adults that don’t wind up in
jail are being financially ruined trying to defend themselves. Kids
will always make their own decisions regardless of laws or government
policy The billions of dollars would be better invested in schools and
teachers, not to mention treatment of people with serious addiction
problems.

Our constitution is sacred, and millions of Americans have died since
this country was founded to first get and then to protect our rights,
and even the rights and liberty of others (hasn’t anyone seen Private
Ryan? Don’t we all know what WWII was about?). How can we allow
short-sighted politicians to trash our rights to make their resumes
look good?

Because they don’t have stupid little mustaches and spout anti-Semitic
garbage doesn’t mean politicians of today aren’t just a different kind
of bigot.

Eric Handel,
Easthampton, Maine