PROHIBITION DIDN'T WORK THE FIRST TIME EITHER

Fran Koontz and Bill Piper both gave evidence in their July 30
articles on how and why the United States is continuing to lose the
war on drugs year after year ("Save Money; Cut Sentences for
Nonviolent Offenders" and "Rethink Tactics of Drug War?").

The reasons included prisons overcrowded with nonviolent offenders;
killings and robberies that are drug-related; corruption of our
law-enforcement agencies; and billions and billions of taxpayers'
dollars spent every year to enforce anti-drug laws that don't appear
to be solving the problems.

Fifty-seven years ago, the textbooks I read in Political Science 101
stated, "Never pass a law that you are not willing or able to enforce."

To continue doing the same thing for 30 years and expecting a
different result is insane. Prohibition of alcohol didn't work, so
why should we think that prohibition of drugs will work?

When I was a young adult, approximately 75 percent of adults smoked
cigarettes and today, less than 25 percent do. We wisely did not
prohibit smoking; this very large decrease was the result of
education and stop-smoking programs.

Koontz and Piper did not go far enough in my opinion, but it is a start.

- - Dudley Dowell

Cumming.