LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS IS HALF-BAKED

Chris Powell (Your Views, June 23) suggested prohibition of drugs
does more harm than good. I wonder if Powell would feel the same if
drugs were legalized and all of the drug users, dealers and cooks
were confined to his neighborhood, free to cook meth next door to him
or in a rent house he owns, now legally allowed to drive a school
bus, a train or fly an aircraft with his family aboard. Would he
still favor legalization if the mechanics working on his car brakes,
the electrician wiring his home or the doctor performing his surgery
were free to use drugs? I'd like to see those favoring legalization
try to explain to children living in meth lab homes, crack houses and
with heroin-addicted parents that we should decriminalize drug use
because it would do less harm than prohibition.

Mark Woodward

Oklahoma City

Woodward is spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and
Dangerous Drugs Control.