COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN A LOST WAR ON DRUGS

RE "IN Mattapan, a grisly sign of a wider crime problem" (Editorial, Sept.
29): The "wider crime problem" in this country is that the drug war is
over: Drugs have won. As with the nationwide ban on alcohol during the
Prohibition-era 1920s, there is simply too much tax- free cash in drug
distribution to ever rid us of the industry's employees, their murderous
turf fights, and the innocent blood they regularly claim. It is time to
place drugs along with alcohol and tobacco on the legalized and taxable
list. Everyone in the drug trade, from the lords of the cartels to the
street dealers, would promptly be on the unemployment line, and society
could save untold billions of dollars over the first 10 years.

If our society can successfully stigmatize smoking, the same can be done
for drugs. And if a few rich teens in the suburbs ruin their lives by
becoming addicts, it is a form of collateral damage I am willing to risk.

Jack Kay

Framingham