DRUG WAR IS WORTH THE BATTLE

Re: Phony war defeats free speech, by Robyn Blumner, Feb. 22.

At a time when the Tampa Bay area is still reeling from the horrific
abduction and death of an 11-year-old at the hand of a drug abuser, Robyn
Blumner calls for an end to the drug war. She quotes a known proponent of
drug legalization who states that the drug war is really about "the culture
clash." No, it's really about the insidious effect of illicit drugs on all
of us and the price that we pay both as a society and as individuals for
the scourge of addiction.

In the year 2000 alone, drug abuse cost American society an estimated
$160-billion. That's just the somewhat quantifiable monetary cost. To use
Ms. Blumner's statistics, the cost of communicating an antidrug message to
our children is $145-million. Which would you rather pay?

We cannot put a price on the suffering of families, especially children,
from drug addiction. Consider how many children are impacted by their
parents' drug abuse. Some 80 percent of people incarcerated or in the
criminal justice system have substance abuse problems. The Times has
recently printed articles about the children of meth addicts now in their
grandparents' care and children abandoned by their mother on Christmas Day
while she went to sell her body to buy drugs.

Yes, we fight the drug war because rescuing our children from addiction's
grip is worth the battle. Saving Carlie Brucia would have been worth any price.

- -- Calvina L. Fay, executive director, Drug Free America Foundation, Inc.,
St. Petersburg