DRUG VIOLENCE GRIEF COUNTERED BY REALITY

Regarding the Sept. 7 editorial "Mexico sees the light on drug
battle": As a retired police detective, I was pleased to see my
colleague San Diego Police Chief Lansdowne also is a medical expert on
drug use/abuse. More likely, he is not but argues for drug prohibition
for one, simple reason: money for his department and officers. My
profession sucks down each year some $72 billion tax dollars to
enforce prohibition. It is our cash cow, great overtime.

Secondarily, my profession will never want to admit to ourselves that
all the officers who have died trying to make this modern prohibition
effective lost their lives in vain. That is truly painful and I grieve
for the officers shot and killed. However, like those who died in
Vietnam, they did die for nothing.

Howard Wooldridge

Adamstown, Md.