A SERIOUS MATTER

Regarding your Nov. 21 editorial "Cocaine's legal haze," no one who has had
a family member or loved one addicted to cocaine or crack cocaine would
share your opinion. A state law making cocaine possession a felony prevents
many would-be cocaine dealers from selling this drug. This problem is
horrible already. Imagine what will happen if possession is a misdemeanor.

The state Court of Appeals' ruling means and I quote from my local paper,
"someone could be arrested for having as many as 150 $20 rocks of cocaine
and be charged with only a misdemeanor." If this interpretation stands,
nearly all dealers arrested would be charged only with a misdemeanor, and
the addicts, for whom incarceration is in their best interest, would
continue to walk the streets as slaves to the addiction. If citizens think
burglaries, robberies, car thefts, breaking and entering and larceny are a
problem now, wait until this law is changed. It may triple the number of
dealers and addicts. Stealing to obtain money or goods to trade for drugs
will increase proportionately.

Worried about the cost to keep a person in prison for a year? You better
worry about the cost to society of not being tough on this particular drug.
To allow cocaine possession to be a misdemeanor is very poor judgment.
We're going to send the message to our teenagers that crack and cocaine are
no worse than marijuana? I don't think so.

Joyce Hayes

Newport