TAKE OUT WARLORDS AND DRUG LORDS

Our invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban but hardly disrupted
the nation's main economy, opium from the poppy seeds.

Ninety-five percent of Afghanistan's opium supply reaches the United
States to feed our drug dealers and drug users, who are responsible
for the majority of serious crimes.

We've had make-believe elections in a make-believe budding democracy
called Afghanistan; but the warlords still control most of the
country, and Americans don't go beyond certain boundaries in
Afghanistan. So it's safe to say neither we nor the democratic Afghans
control the country.

Drugs are the main economy, and they are controlled by elements
hostile to the government of Afghanistan and the United States. If
G.W. Bush were not controlled by certain elements, this would be a
superb opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. We've been losing
the war on drugs as long as we've been losing the war on poverty. Why
don't we legalize drugs?

We know that the Afghan warlords' only source of income would be dried
up and they would cease to be a threat to the democratization of
Afghanistan without an economic base to purchase weapons and supply
terrorists. The entire drug-dealing economy would be destroyed in the
United States, and the government can control the distribution of
drugs from marijuana to opium and cocaine by registering the users and
giving them access to rehab clinics.

The prices could be set at penny levels to totally assure that the
housing-project drug lords and mafia would recognize the lack of
profit in drug trafficking. The benefits to the prison system and the
justice system would be enormous. Drugs cost only pennies to produce,
but the profits are astronomical as the Afghan warlords and our own
drug lords well know.

I know it will never happen, but it should if we are serious about
winning the war in Afghanistan and in America.

William J. Levy

Ormond Beach