RECONSIDER DRUG POLICY

Doug Bandow's outstanding review of Joel Miller's "Bad Trip" and
Jeffrey Miron's "Drug War Crimes" (Books, Sunday) didn't mention it,
but when all types of recreational drugs were legally sold in local
pharmacies for pennies per dose, the term "drug-related crime" didn't
exist.

Neither did drug lords nor even drug dealers as we know them today.
These were all created by our drug-criminalization policies -- not the
drugs themselves. When all types of recreational drugs were legally
available in local pharmacies and other licensed business
establishments, deaths from recreational drugs were very rare. That's
because the drugs were of known quality, known purity and known
potency. This is just the opposite of our black-market drugs of today.

Mr. Miller and Mr. Miron are right on the mark that our
drug-criminalization policies are counterproductive. When marijuana
was criminalized via the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, the vast majority
of Americans had never heard of marijuana.

Now everybody in the United States knows what marijuana is, and our
government estimates that at least 90 million Americans have used it.
About half of all high school students will use it before they graduate.

People, especially children, want what they are told they cannot have.
The lure of forbidden fruit is very powerful.

KIRK MUSE

Mesa, Ariz.