IS THE WAR ON DRUGS WORTH ALL THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE?

Thank you for presenting the prohibitionist view offered by John P.
Walters, a man of significant experience and stature ("Drugs: To
Legalize or Not," Weekend Journal, April 25). If the defense of the
indefensible had been presented by an individual of lesser
accomplishments you could be justifiably accused of bias in favor of
the opposing argument presented by Steven B. Duke. To my knowledge no
other national newspaper has undertaken this third-rail issue.

Mr. Duke's reference to the undeniably successful eight-year-old
Portuguese experiment would be immediately comprehensible to my
12-year-old granddaughter, though perhaps not to her five-year-old
sister or to those Americans who steadfastly cling to the notion of
the perfectibility of human nature.

As Mr. Walters points out, repealing prohibition didn't end crime,
but it removed the glamour and money from bootlegging. The real
victims of repeal were among the small criminal element of police,
politicians and judges. What has reduced the drug, alcohol and
tobacco-abusing segments to today's levels is not, as Mr. Walters
would have us believe, an expensive war on drugs, but widespread and
successful education efforts by health professionals and governments.

Twenty-first century repeal would cut the ground out from under the
wealthy and corrupting Latin American drug syndicates, as well as the
Taliban and other beneficiaries of our current drug policy. We could
call a halt to the incarceration of minority drug users now subject
to discriminatory drug prosecutions, close half our prisons, and
divert precious resources now wasted on our war on drugs to constructive uses.

Jon Somer, Oldwick, N.J.