BATTLING DRUGS

In a June 11 Burgoo item, Leonard Pitts criticized former President
Ronald Reagan for not solving the "crack" epidemic in the black
community. He also criticized Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" program.

Here are a couple of other perspectives.

First, the reason we have a crack epidemic in the black community is
that blacks are making, using and selling crack. Pitts should put a
little effort into convincing his people that taking crack is a bad
thing and encourage them to stop it.

Second, Pitts was wrong when he said the "war on drugs" was "ruinous."
According to a University of Michigan Survey Research Center study,
"Monitoring the Future," as of 1979, the perception among high school
students was that taking marijuana was not harmful. They thought the
risk of taking drugs was low, social disapproval of drug use was also
low and usage of drugs was high (over 50 percent of high school
students had taken marijuana).

But thanks to Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" program, disapproval of
drug use and the perception that drugs were a risk began to climb and,
most important, drug use among students began to drop. However, in
late 1991 when taking pot became a political issue, the perception
that drugs were bad began to decline, and drug usage started back up.

Thank Nancy Reagan for the decline and former President Bill Clinton
for the increase.

Ted Smith

Park Hills