DRUG WAR GUTTING CONSTITUTION

How refreshing to read the recent articles decrying the excesses of the "war
on drugs" (Outlook articles, Jan. 10, "Oregon not only victim in Houston's
failed drug war," by David Jones and Jan. 3, "Memo to the Legislature: Just
vote no," by Bill Hobby).

This war continues to gut our Constitution while we Americans sit back and
do nothing to stop it.

Every day American people are forced to submit to random drug tests without
just cause. These tests directly violate the Fourth Amendment and serve no
practical purpose since they only detect past drug use and not intoxication.

People are stopped in their cars by police and are asked to submit to a
vehicle search. The police have to ask this question because they have no
probable cause for the search. When permission to search is not granted, the
unlucky motorist is told that refusal means they must be hiding something
and therefore probable cause to search without consent is established.

Users of "soft" drugs such as marijuana are being put in jail at record
rates, even though there is no link between violent crime and the
consumption of marijuana alone.

We hear cries about how many young people are trying drugs while the media
ignore the fact that alcohol is the drug of choice for teens and is the
largest killer of teen-agers.

The drug war is a great way to divert the sheep from the wolves who are
moving in for the kill. The wolves are the politicians, the media and the
judges who use the fear of "drugs" to take away our basic freedoms.

Christopher B. Young, Beaumont