DRUG PROHIBITION KILLS

Thanks for publishing Arnold Trebach's outstanding column "Fatal
alliance" (Op-Ed, Aug. 20). I'd like to add that alcohol prohibition
was not terminated because it was decided that alcohol was not so bad
after all, but rather because of the crime and corruption that its
prohibition caused.

The time has come to terminate our counterproductive so-called war on
drugs. Not because some of the drugs are not dangerous -- many drugs
are very dangerous. But because of the crime and corruption drug
prohibition is causing and because our drug prohibition policies are
financing international terrorists.

Will our next September 11 be financed by our drug prohibition
policies? Probably.

Of course, many with a vested financial interest in maintaining the
status quo of drug prohibition will proclaim that re-legalizing our
now illegal drugs will be giving in to the drug cartels. When we
re-legalized the drug alcohol in 1933, did we give into the alcohol
cartels? No. We put them out of business.

We need to put the drug cartels out of business the same way we put
the alcohol cartels out of business. For our children's sake.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.