WAR ON DRUGS A FAILURE

Editor:

Re: Your editorial "War on drugs must be fought with fervor."

Every negative about drugs that you predicted in your editorial is
exactly what is going on today.

Too many of us are seeing husband, wife, brother, friend or child fall
into the depths of substance addiction. We are seeing friendships
crumble, families suffer and children neglected and going hungry. We
see grandparents raising grandchildren because of parents enslaved by
addictive drugs.

To go even further, we see unprecedented violence and tragedy along
our border, and continued increased crime rates in our cities,
directly tied to drugs and the drug trade.

This is the situation today and, this is exactly what Howard
Wooldridge and many others like him are totally fed up with and want
to stop.

According to Howard, a legalized drug program would take the money,
the driving force, out of the drug trade. It could also, if done
right, bring regulation and control to the use of drugs that would
require monitoring the health of addicts and keep junkies off the streets.

Now, I have to tell you, I don't have the answer to the drug abuse
problem. But it is obvious that the war on drugs is a failure and just
throwing more of our money at it is not going to make it work.

We need to look for a new approach and we need to put every option on
the table, and not reject any idea out-of-hand, based on past
prejudice or a failure to listen with an open mind.

John Zilisch

Payson