NONPROFIT GROUPS COULD RUN DRUG-DISPENSING CLINICS

I was pleased with Gerard Shields' article "David Greene to run for City
Council president" (Jan. 6).

Here are two points of clarification:

I am calling for drug dispensing, not by the federal government, but by
medical clinics, independent of both federal and local governments, overseen
by a commission composed of nonprofit groups such as the Red Cross, Health
Care for the Homeless, Women's Housing Coalition, Associated Catholic
Charities and Associated Jewish Charities.

The federal government would finance this program from the large savings it
would realize by ending the failed "war on drugs." It is true that federal
law must be changed to allow the City-Wide Coalition's proposed solution.

Taking the profits out of drugs, as proposed, would probably have cut
Baltimore's 1998 homicide toll of 314.