WHITE HOUSE WAR ON DRUGS VS. WATANABE

Steve Watanabe's article "Time to wave a white flag in the drug war"
[Orange Grove, Aug. 11] was wrong on facts and in logic. Watanabe sets up a
false dilemma between full legalization of all drugs and a Draconian regime
where anyone caught with drugs is executed or imprisoned for life. He
closes his tirade with the plea, "What have the last 25 years of money and
effort accomplished?"

Quite a bit, as it turns out. Casual drug use has halved among Americans,
from the 1979 peak of 14 percent of the population to 6.1 percent of the
population in 1996. Over 61 million Americans who once used drugs have now
rejected them. These statistics and others are published in the "National
Drug Control Strategy," available on-line at:
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/policy/ndcs.html.

Had Watanabe bothered to check this site, he would have discovered that the
federal drug-control policy actually places emphasis on demand reduction.
The prime national priority is preventing youth drug abuse, followed by
expanding treatment for those trying to escape addiction.

James R. McDonough - Washington, D.C.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski