LEGALIZE, THEN TAX DRUGS

Like the governor, I, too, wondered why the promise of the '60s wasn't
fulfilled for minorities. It didn't make any sense until I asked
myself what was so different about that time. Then, I remembered my
own fierce anger with a government that was sending kids off to die
for no good reason, which in turn prompted a rejection of old values,
and experimentation with illicit drugs. Now I could start to
understand what happened.

The illicit drug trade as we know it today, was spawned in the '60s.
Now, after 30 years of government intervention which has only made it
stronger, that vicious trade lives in the poorest neighborhoods,
driven there by more prosperous folks who don't want it in their
backyard, and like the worst kind of attractive nuisance, it pulls in
young kids who are vulnerable to the lure of easy money and prestige.

Add to the mix insane seizure laws and a legion of zealous cops who
know where the easiest busts are, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Which, with 50 percent of all young black men and more than 30 percent
of young Hispanic men either incarcerated or carrying police records
for drug offenses, is just what we have; a disaster that will impact
the neighborhoods of these young men, not just now, but for
generations to come.

So if you want to start healing the damage, by all means teach
personal responsibility, but teach by example, by first legalizing,
taxing and regulating all drugs, gambling and other assorted vices, so
that users, not the purveyor or the state, are solely responsible for
the consequences of their behavior.

CARROL J. WALLACE

Belton