`U.S. DRUG WAR VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS'

Editor -- During Bill Clinton's visit to China, a favorite theme has been
human rights, an area in which his qualifications are both gilt-edged and
wildly conflicting. As the American president, he embodies the historic
legacy of the Enlightenment, that 18th-century philosophy which first
articulated the idea that ordinary humans have ``rights'' and directly
inspired this nation's revolutionary manifesto.

Although human rights have progressed unevenly and sometimes violently in
America, we have ultimately extended them to blacks, women, and the poor --
at least in theory.

As our chief executive, Clinton also presides over a drug war which, at
American insistence, has become global policy. Since the end of the Cold
War, this policy has been responsible for more human rights violations than
any other. The critical insight necessary to reach that conclusion:
awarding a lucrative monopoly to a violent criminal market is not sane
public health, nor is diligent failure in pursuit of that policy's
irrational goals responsible government. The unnecessary deaths, ruined
lives and political corruption produced are a matter of record.

When enough people develop the necessary insight, that record will become
an indictment of leaders who proclaim with religious fervor that criminal
prohibition is the only permissible policy and doubters must be
``legalizers'' who wish to sell drugs to children.

History will not treat such leaders any more kindly than it has the earlier
advocates of an equally bogus policy: John C. Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, or
Roger B. Taney, for example.

THOMAS O'CONNELL, M.D.

San Mateo

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski