To the Editor:

A. M. Rosenthal's analysis that we are winning the drug war (column, April
8) ignores a few points.

One is the Clinton Administration's drug war budget of $16 billion. Mr.
Rosenthal points out that in the early 1980's, many more people used drugs
than do now. Yet in 1980 the drug budget was only $1 billion.

Why does it cost so much more to deal with fewer users?

Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the White House drug czar, is the Administration's
point man in justifying this precipitous rise in expenditures. His is a
tough task. After all, what else does the Federal Government spend 15 times
as much on today as a decade and a half ago?

Mr. McCaffrey explains that we have as many intensive drug users today as
in 1980. In other words, we managed to get casual drug users to stop but
made no impact on heavy users.

Smoking heroin is called "chasing the dragon." The United States is chasing
its national dragon by pouring more and more money into our illusory
conquest of drug abuse.

STANTON PEELE
New York,

The writer is a fellow with the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy institute.