VESTED INTERESTS

Thanks for publishing Dr. Mett Ausley Jr.'s outstanding letter: "This
War Is Wasteful And Doomed To Failure" (The Pilot, May 30). I'd like
to add the war on drugs was doomed before it began simply because we
cannot nullify the immutable law of supply and demand.

As long as people want recreational drugs and they are willing to pay
a substantial price for them, someone will produce the drugs and
someone will get the drugs to the willing buyers.

America's counter-productive drug war continues because it has created
a huge bureaucracy of people, industries and institutions with a
vested financial interest in its continuation.

Today the United States has more prisoners than any other country in
history, primarily because of our drug war. Those 2 million prisoners
create hundreds of thousands of relatively high-paying government jobs.

Government employees with drug war-created jobs will do anything and
everything in their power to make sure the drug war never ends.

Until we can solve this problem, our drug war and prison system will
continue to expand -- and our personal freedoms will continue to shrink.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.