PROHIBITION IS IMMORAL

You described us (for I was one of the signatories) as naive
"geniuses" who were issuing pabulum to the world; claimed that we were
all dupes of George Soros, and suggested that the signatories might be
drug users.

The 500 "eminences" you derided included present and former prime
ministers, cabinet ministers, ministers of justice, U.S. attorneys
general, and a secretary of state; university presidents and
professors; innumerable practitioners and professors of medicine and
psychiatry; mayors, police commissioners, clergymen, bishops,
businessmen, journalists, criminologists, Nobel laureates, and many
more. I am amazed that you consider so many of the leaders of our
society to be so foolish as to have a view which, a day after its
publication, you were sensible enough to dismiss out of hand. Does
that not frighten you?

Their credentials should, at the very least, cause you to re-think
your own views and to support free expression and a commitment to
research unfettered by "Just Say No" slogans and practices that have
up to now put millions of people into jail, fed the crime syndicates,
subverted the justice system, disturbed our foreign relations, and
cost our country billions of dollars without--as far as anyone can
tell--making any contribution to the problems generated either by
drugs or by the "war on drugs."

Henry G. Jarecki, M.D.

New York