Scare Tactics don't solve the drug problem

Regarding Jennifer Bakht's Oct. 15 letter, "Scare younger kids away from
drugs":

I am a 40-year-old. During my day in junior high school, her idea was already being implemented. It didn't work. I belong to a generation in which drug use possibly reached record highs. The reason for this is simple: Scare tactics are not believed. Subject another generation to horror stories, if you wish, but don't think you are doing something to curb drug use.

It seems to me that the drug problem today is similar to the alcohol problem of the 1920s, e.g., driveby shootings, career criminals created in youth, corruption in government. I am not an advocate of drug use, but trying to legislate against it seems to create more problems than it attempts to solve.

Curt Pratsky,

Porstmouth Va.