DRUG USE IS NOT VICTIMLESS

Obviously, Mr. Tamm has never been the victim of a drug-related crime
- - which, by the way is currently rampant world-wide ("Let
drug-users be," Letters, Nov. 19).

Robberies and murders, torture by drug lords and drug dealers.
Children killed or brain damaged from living with drugged out parents
in their meth labs. The owners of rental units holding the meth labs
who have to destroy their own property because the fumes and residue
from the production of the meth permeates the walls of the building at
the same time it is destroying the minds of those children. Residue
which cannot be removed. Buildings must be destroyed.

Nor is he the parent of a child who had died a drug ravaged death, or
gone to jail for some horrendous crime he doesn't remember
committing... i.e. the man who threw the baby off the bridge in Honolulu.

Nor is he the parent of a child who left the island because of
conflict with a parent over his drug use and has never been heard from
since. You tell me which is worse? The child in jail or not knowing if
your child is alive or dead... even 20 or 30 years after they left?
He/she is still your child, no matter how old they get. Not knowing is
agony. I could go on; but I won't.

Drug use is not victimless. I can only hope you were writing out of
ignorance and not because you were trying to justify your own use of
the product.

Sandra Makuaole,
Waimea