COSTLY DRUG WAR

Thanks to Bill McClellan for his Feb. 25 column, "Frank talk about
drugs could do us all some good." With the cost of the ongoing war on
drugs still increasing and the end nowhere in sight, regulation is a
much more feasible approach to the drug problem than
criminalization.

Today's gangs and drug lords thrive on the black market for illegal
drugs, much the same as gangsters of the Prohibition era. Prisons are
overcrowded with minor drug offenders and junkies who need treatment,
not jail time.

Regulations on the sale of drugs, much like that of alcohol, would
take a large burden off the government and the taxpayers by helping to
stop prison crowding and stop the government's money trap that is the
"war on drugs."

Alex Streiff,

Wildwood