COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Regarding Cynthia Tucker's thoughtful column: "War on drugs is
failing" (Dec. 30, TimesDaily) . I believe the so-called war on
drugs is going as planed. It's white people who are the unintended
victims--not blacks.

H. R. Haldeman, President Nixon's Chief of Staff, wrote in his diary:
"(President Nixon) emphasized that you have to face the fact that the
whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system
that recognizes this while not appearing to."

Our war on certain (politically selected) drugs has been an ideal
system of going after the blacks without appearing to do so.

Today's racists aren't using fire hoses or ax handles--they're using
the war on drugs.

The United States is the most incarcerated nation on the planet and
in history, thanks primarily to our counter-productive war on drugs,
which is actually a war on (politically selected) people.

And Black people are the (politically selected) people. White people
arrested and imprisoned in the drug war are just "collateral damage."

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.