PARALLELS BETWEEN DRUGS, PROHIBITION

I would like to thank reporter Pam Gehl for printing a statement from
Greg Francisco in her Feb. 16 article: ``It is not that I advocate
using drugs, it is just that what we are doing is just making the
problem worse.''

A similar statement was made in 1926. ``Prohibition is responsible for
children growing up with a total lack of respect for the Constitution
and for the law.'' Pauline Morton Sabin, president of the Woman's
National Republican Club from 1921 to 1926, made that statement during
the prohibition of alcohol.

In 1929, Sabin and 23 other women from 11 states formally launched
WONPR (Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform). The
organization declared: ``Prohibition, wrong in principle, has been
equally disastrous in consequences in the hypocrisy, the corruption,
the tragic loss of life and the appalling increase of crime which have
attended the abortive attempt to enforce it; in the shocking effect it
has had upon the youth of the nation; in the impairment of
constitutional guarantees of individual rights.''

I think Francisco would have supported WONPR and proudly used their
aphorism, Save our Children.

Larry Seguin

Lisbon, N.Y.