Dear Editor: President Clinton's lecturing of Chinese leaders on human
rights is nothing short of hypocritical. Current drug policies have made
the United States a world leader in incarcerating its citizens. Our prisons
are full, with more and more of our tax dollars going toward additional
construction.

Tens of thousands of drug war prisoners are serving long sentences for
non-violent drug crimes, while rapists and murderers are set free.

At the state level we find numerous atrocities such as Oklahoma's Will
Foster, doing 93 years for growing a couple pot plants to ease his
arthritis.

If Clinton is sincere about human rights, he would stop the cruel and
immoral persecution of medical marijuana patients and reform the
failed drug policies that have caused so much harm to America and the
world.

Mr. Clinton should take a cue from Milton Friedman, George Schulz,
Perez De Cuellar, and the other 500+ eminent signers of the recent
letter to the United Nations special session on drugs concluding
current drug policies are causing more harm than good, and calling for
more humane solutions to drug problems.

It's time to depoliticize what is essentially a health problem, and
work to minimize the harmful effects, rather than making them worse.
Only then can the U.S. point fingers at other nation's human rights
records.

Gary Storck