REPORTING THE DRUGS WAR

SIR--Why is it that anyone who suggests other approaches to the drug
problem than the one-sided interdiction programme ("Ending the war on
drugs", January 2nd) is accused of being "soft on drugs"? Interdiction
causes the extreme profits made by the drug cartels.

A balanced programme of interdiction; treatment and counselling; and
controlled and unadvertised legalised sales of drugs would undermine these
profits.

Low or no profits would be the best barrier to the illegal importation of
drugs.

So who is "soft on drugs"? Those who wish to undermine the profits of the
drug cartels or those who insist on the interdiction programme that keeps
the cartels alive?

EDWARD BRYANT New York

SIR--If America is serious about curtailing the drugs trade, it should call
off the "war" as it is now being pursued and instead allow the importation,
growth or manufacture of currently illicit substances to proceed
unhindered. This would expose those who profit from the trade to the more
frightening prospect of liability litigation pursued by hardened,
experienced lawyers fresh from victory in the tobacco wars.

MATTHEW BRITSCHGI Ellensburg, Washington

SIR--America's criminalisation of marijuana began in the 1930s when
DuPont's chemists developed petrochemical cellophane and nylon while
perfecting the sulphate-sulphite process to make cheap paper from wood
pulp. William Randolph Hearst was then busy investing millions in timber in
both America and Mexico. The only competition came from hemp, a crop
requiring scant water and no pesticides. Newspaper pulp manufactured from
hemp required no toxic sulphites and offered more pulp per acre than trees.

It was also a cheap base for commercial plastics.

The two industrial giants conspired and eventually wiped out America's
commercial hemp. Hearst geared up his newspaper empire to criminalise hemp
while DuPont's lobbying in Washington helped establish the Federal Bureau
of Narcotics in 1930. The then secretary of the treasury, Andrew Mellon,
was also DuPont's lawyer.

In August 1937 President Roosevelt dealt commercial hemp a fatal blow by
signing the Marijuana Tax Act.

EDWARD MILLER San Rafael, California