Editor -- Your March 21 lead editorial on certification is an unwitting and
near perfect illustration of the basic nature of this nation's self-induced
insanity of drug prohibition.

You correctly observe, ``Mexico's dismal record in controlling narcotics
trafficking.'' And point out that, ``70 percent of all illegal drugs
entering the United States comes through Mexico.'' You also say that, ``if
the United States, with all its power and riches, cannot control or even
diminish the demand for drugs within its own borders, it is absurd to
demand that much poorer nations save us from ourselves.'' Then amazingly,
you then fail to grasp the significance of your own observations and
suggest that the ``answer'' is to scrap the certification process because
it doesn't work! Pardon my exclamation point; it simply expresses the
amazement someone outside the paradigm of drug prohibition feels when
confronted by the absurdities of those still laboring within it. The
critical question is: when is The Chronicle and the rest of America going
to wake up to the fact that drug prohibition is a form of utopian insanity
that this country has, because of its wealth and power, been able to force
on the rest of the world. It's a policy which makes completely invalid
assumptions about reality and human nature and then tries to make them come
true, doing enormous damage to all of us in the process. Sadly, the real
``answer'' won't come until The Chronicle editors and enough other
Americans wake up to that simple truth.

THOMAS O'CONNELL, M.D.
San Mateo