AMERICA IS HOOKED NOT ON ILLEGAL DRUGS BUT ON DRUG WAR

The "war on drugs" today is mostly about marijuana ("The marijuana
ruling," editorial, June 9). Marijuana arrests, convictions and
incarcerations and the seizure of property in marijuana cases
constitute the great majority of "drug-war incidents."

Without marijuana prohibition, the drug war and its bloated budget
would not be justifiable -- nor would the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Agency, foreign intervention, or political anti-drug posturing.
Without marijuana prohibition, the whole "war on drugs" would fall apart.

America is in the throes of an addiction, to be sure. But it is to
the prohibition of drugs, much more than to the use of drugs.
Enormous and wildly increasing budgets are squandered on ever-higher
doses of the drug-prohibition habit. Vehement denials are heard that
the prohibition habit is the problem, along with pronouncements that
one more big fix of "enforcement and interdiction" will solve the drug problem.

In great fear of withdrawal, the addict will commit any disgrace,
deception, double-think or crime to get a fix. Drug prohibition has
become the monkey on the back of democracy itself.

LARRY SEGUIN

Lisbon, N.Y.