DRUG WAR IS FAILURE

President Bush is cutting the funding for pork programs such as the High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area and the Judge Advocate General. This is good.

Government pork programs have a tendency to take on a life of their own and
become perpetual spending projects. I am glad that some politicians have
realized that we cannot wage perpetual wars abroad and at home under the
guise of fighting drugs.

America has made itself the world's largest imprisoner of its own people
because of the war on drugs. Mass community roundups where hundreds of
people are dragged from their beds and thrown in shackles are another
sickening aspect to the spectacle called the drug war.

A compliant press is more than willing to hype any program the government
wants to throw money at. Where is the common sense and reason?

Republicans love pork spending every bit as much as Democrats do; it's just
that Republican pork takes the guise of police, prisons, courts,
prosecutors, the military and any other agency that can arrest and imprison
people.

Pork is pork, whether it is spent on welfare or police. Bush understands
that he cannot keep spending tax dollars wildly without driving America
into a recession.

Let's spend the money to fight the war on terror. I would rather see the
Republicans capture Osama bin Laden and the anthrax killer than arrest
another 100 pot smokers.

Kudos to Bush for a good decision; the drug war is a failure.

William Hurt

Lexington