VIEW OF FUTILITY FROM THE FRONT LINE

Your editorial "Wrong front for the drug war" captures in miniature
the self-defeating absurdity of our current "prohibition," a.k.a.,
the war on drugs. As a former participant who arrested more than
1,000 young people in that trillion-dollar effort, I can attest to
its futility and moral bankruptcy. Besides making America the most
heavily incarcerated nation in the world, it now funds international
terrorists while preventing desperately ill people from getting medical relief.

It certainly doesn't prevent dangerous drug use.

Even more infuriating, there are viable alternatives that involve a
tightly controlled, regulated market. A growing number of European
countries have shown that the crime, disease, and death associated
with heroin addiction can be profoundly lessened by treating
addiction as a health problem rather than a sign of immoral character
requiring police intervention.

As Richard Holbrooke puts it, drug eradication is "the single most
ineffective program in the history of American foreign policy." As
the cops at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition put it, the war on
drugs is the single most dysfunctional policy since slavery.

Jack A. Cole

Medford

The writer is executive director of Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition, and a 26-year veteran of the New Jersey State Police,
with 14 years in undercover narcotics.