REMOVE DRUG BANS

Thank you for publishing Richard Sinnott's outstanding letter: "Legal
heroin is safer" (Feb. 7). I'd like to add that when all types of
recreational drugs were legally sold in local pharmacies for pennies
per dose, the term "drug-related crime" didn't exist. Neither did
drug lords nor drug cartels. These were all created by drug
prohibition policies - not the drugs themselves. Ninety years ago when
all types of recreational drugs were legally sold in local pharmacies,
the U.S. addiction rate was 1.3 percent of our population, according
to U.S. District Judge John Kane.

According to Judge Kane, today we have 1.3 percent of our population
addicted to drugs. Ninety years ago, drug users didn't have to rob,
steal or commit acts of prostitution to obtain their drugs. Ninety
years ago, the United States was not the most incarcerated nation in
history. We are today - thanks primarily to our counterproductive war
on drugs.

It's time to do something different - substantially
different.

KIRK MUSE
Mesa, Ariz.