ARRESTS ONLY WORSEN PROBLEM

Arresting doctors will do nothing to stop the illegal trade in any
substance, including prescription drugs. The more people who are
arrested, the fewer who will have access, and the higher the prices
for the commodity will be. Driving up the value increases
profitability in a black market just as has happened in our nation's
so-called war on drugs. This is simple economics.

The drug war has accomplished nothing it has set out to do. Between
1975 and 2000, more than 82 percent of high school seniors reported
that marijuana was fairly easy or very easy to obtain, according a
2001 report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

We are wasting a whole lot of money and gaining few results. As long
as someone is poor enough and these substances are expensive enough,
someone will come along and sell them. As long as we keep drugs in the
black market, it will be next to impossible to restrict access.

As the police officer quoted in the recent article on the Melbourne
doctor's arrest for selling Oxycontin said, "Once the person is
addicted, they will do whatever necessary to obtain that drug." And
someone will always be poor and desperate enough to provide the commodity.

Many law-enforcement agencies have more officers in their narcotics
units than in their homicide and violent-crime units. Yet we would all
probably agree that murder, rape, and other violent crimes should be
the main priority of the law enforcement agencies.

ANTHONY LORENZO

Tampa