WE CAN MINIMIZE HARM DONE BY DRUGS

Thank you for the article exposing the Ohio Highway Patrol's use of racial
profiling as a tool to catch so-called drug runners. I've read some
responses in the Readers' Forum stating in effect that because minorities
are caught with drugs, it doesn't matter how they were caught. I'll bet
dollars to doughnuts those who responded aren't members of the targeted
minorities.

Most crime associated with drugs is a result of prohibition, just as it was
with organized crime associated with alcohol. Prohibition is wrong and so
is racial profiling, but if the highway patrol wishes to profile typical
drug users and runners they might consider middle-class white males because
they outnumber minority drug users by about seven to one.

I doubt the response to such a profiling plan would be what it has been;
it's different when you or your loved ones are the target.

We can minimize the harm caused by drugs by legalization, medicalization,
and regulation, or we can do what we have always done and continue to
suffer the consequences.

Jim White

Oregon