Re: Cox News Service, Mary Alice Davis, Dec. '97, "Global
marketing of heroin is claiming our teen-agers," in 1997 a total
of 16 youths from Plano lost their lives to heroin overdose.
Experts report the children were under the misguided notion that
snorting or smoking heroin was inherently safer than IV injection.

One must ask: How is it that the most aggressive anti-drug policy
in the history of the world failed to communicate the lethal
potential of all opiates - regardless of the method of ingestion?
Answer: This policy has many deadly flaws. And the most deadly
flaw lies with policy-makers who refuse to share the theater with
qualified personnel. Rational alternatives to our mortally
wounded war on drugs continue to be shunned.

Who seeks alternatives? Associations of trained professionals and
private citizens who have taken the time to discover the success
of alternatives such as needle exchange programs and
decriminalizing marijuana for adults.

Ask policy-makers to pursue alternatives under a model of harm
reduction and tolerance.

We can treat addiction, we can even live with it, but who is
profiting from this barrage of open caskets, private prisons and
hollow promises?

John F. Wilson
Waco, TX