LOCK UP SMOKERS

If prohibition is good for marijuana users, then it ought to work for these
irresponsible tobacco smokers. Obviously, with more than 642,000 arrests
for marijuana last year(up from 300,000 arrests in 1991), incarceration is
a very popular program for dealing with the scourge of pot and should be
applied to the tobacco smokers as well in order to improve the nation's
health and cut costs.

In the recent study from Columbia University, publicized by no less a
scholar then Joe Califano, the findings showed that tobacco is the true
"gateway drug." The bast majority of heroin users reported starting their
illicit drug-use careers by smoking tobacco. Clearly tobacco is the root
cause of the heroin epidemic (the number of hard-drug addicts has remained
essentially unchanged and minuscule for decades).

Where busting pot-heads has made no difference in the number of heroin
users, putting tobacco users in prison, seizing their assets, and saddling
them with felony convictions is obviously appropriate for these scofflaws
who are still not going along with our national priorities. Clearly they
should be prevented from harming the rest of us with "side smoke".

We should put them in prison - for their own good and to promote our
national priorities.

Jim Rosenfield
Culver City