WE'RE LOSING A WAR OF CHOICE

Policymaker ignores stats Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy, says that "23 million suffer
from substance abuse or dependency," not mentioning that over 18
million of those abuse alcohol, a ratio similar to 1900, when heroin
and cocaine were legal and widely advertised. He ignores the
ONDCP-ordered report of 2001: "Addiction to such legal substances as
alcohol and tobacco may constitute problems more severe in their
adverse consequences than addiction to such illegal drugs as cocaine,
heroin or marijuana." He says "legalization would increase drug
availability" when teens have been saturated with illegal drugs for
more than 40 years, and prohibition has added over a million teens who
sell drugs each year. No serious economist disputes that if cartels
could compete, they would control alcohol. He ignores the premier
medical journal The Lancet, which stated that prohibitions only impede
research and treatment -- and "such legislation does not get rid of
the problem; it merely shifts it elsewhere." Empty words, wasted
resources and constant obfuscation are not "change you can believe
in."

Jerry Epstein, Houston