UNWINNABLE FIGHT

Do the warriors actually want to win the war? I believe Americans deserve
to have this question more fully explored. Michael Holzmeister stated, "If
drugs are as big a scourge as the warriors would have us believe, they are
going to need a convoy of trucks to haul all the illegal substances away."
In fact, according to the Associated Press, only 10 to 15 percent of the
heroin, and roughly 30 percent of the cocaine that hits our streets, is
intercepted by law enforcement, while it would take the removal of at least
75 percent to begin to have an impact on drug trafficking. Even under a
totalitarian regime, this would be impossible.

One enormous problem is that we place all illegal substances under the same
umbrella, and call them dangerous, while glorifying patented
pharmaceuticals and alcohol. In foreign papers, they call cannabis "the
aspirin of the 21st century," while we have "drug czar" John Walters trying
to tell us medical marijuana is a "cruel hoax." Walters is either being
willfully ignorant or cruelly deceptive.

There are better ways, and we can make the nation safer for all of us, by
demanding better from the people we pay to advise us.

ERIN HILDEBRANDT

Smithsburg, Md.