CARTELS WOULD GO AWAY

Tod Robberson raises several good questions about drug legalization
but ignores the obvious
answers. I'll respond to just one: what will happen to the cartels?

What happened to Al Capone when alcohol was legalized? The bad news is
he didn't go away. Just now, the Mafia is no longer a major threat.

But when the illegal money was taken out of alcohol, the mob quit
having machine gun shootouts in the streets of Chicago. The price of
legal beer wasn't worth dying over. Take the $20 billion a year that
the illegality of drugs sends to the Mexican cartels, and they will
quit shooting, too. They will just become ordinary crooks that
ordinary cops can deal with. As a bonus, we do a better job of keeping
legal booze and tobacco away from kids than we do with illegal marijuana.

Buford C. Terrell, Stafford