OUR UNWINNABLE WAR -- AGAINST DRUGS

Legalization would be a catastrophe. Mr. Melloan uses the analogy of
legal alcohol. Great, there are 15 million alcoholics in this country
and 5 million drug addicts; do we want the five to become 15?

Parents know that taking away the incentive of the normative power of
the law would increase drug use and related car crashes, school
dropouts and work absences. Hospital emergency rooms would be
flooded, and crime would return to the crisis levels of the 1970s and
'80s, when drug use was at its highest. Domestic violence and date
rape would be substantially higher. Sixty per cent of arrestees in 30
cities each of the last five years tested positive for illegal drugs:
a remarkable indicator of a link between drugs and crime.

With a comprehensive anti-drug strategy in place, involving foreign
policy, enforcement, education, treatment, and prevention, America's
overall drug use has declined almost 50% in the past two decades --
from 26 million in 1980 to 14 million monthly users now. In addition,
cocaine use, including crack -- the source of much of the former
record high violent crime numbers -- is down 70%. Want to go back?

Robert Weiner

Washington

(Mr. Weiner is former spokesman, White House National Drug Policy
Office, and senior policy analyst, Robert Weiner Associates.)