"We could have a virtually drug-free America in three or four years,"
according to Rep. Bill McCollum in his March 10 commentary, "Waving the
white flag in drug war?" Mr. McCollum believes we should develop a
strategy and apply whatever resources are necessary to win the drug war.
Unfortunately, he offers nothing new.

Since the 1920s, the U.S. government has prohibited an array of ingestible
substances, including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD and many
others. Though the government eventually saw the error of its ways and
re-legalized alcohol, it can't seem to make the same connection with other
illegal substances. All drugs were legal for most of our history and never
were much of a public concern.

Only when the government took upon itself to decide what individuals may or
may not put into their own bodies did we have mass arrests of otherwise
law-abiding citizens, corruption and graft running rampant through all
sectors of the government, overcrowded prisons and courts, an enormous
number of rich and powerful criminal gangs and much more.

Government officials such as Mr. McCollum will never force America to be
drug free - only less free. I am tired of hearing the same old plans I
have heard for 30 years and statements about how we are winning the war
when one party is in charge and losing the war when the other party is
running the show. Please negotiate a surrender so we can live in peace, as
this futile war is being fought in my neighborhood.

"Prohibition . . . goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to
control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things
that are not crimes. . . . A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very
principles upon which our government was founded," Abraham Lincoln said.

I challenge Mr. McCollum to act more like an American congressman and less
like a central-planning Soviet-style poli-bureaucrat.

Tomas R. Estrada-Palma
Vice chairman
Virginia Libertarian Party
Woodbridge