NATION FIGHTS FAILED DRUG WAR

Editor, Times-Dispatch: Thank you for acknowledging the racial disparities
in drug war enforcement in your editorial, "The Chief Speaks."

Blacks and whites use drugs at roughly the same rates. Far more drug deals
occur in suburban basements than on Richmond streets. Although only 15
percent of the nation's drug users are black, blacks account for 37 percent
of those arrested for drug violations, more than 42 percent of those in
federal prisons for drug violations, and almost 60 percent of those in
state prisons for drug felonies. Support for the failed drug war would end
overnight if whites were incarcerated for drug offenses at the same rate as
minorities.

Richmond Police Chief Andre Parker is faced with a Sisyphean task.
So-called drug-related crime is invariably prohibition-related. With
alcohol prohibition repealed, liquor bootleggers no longer gun each other
down in drive-by shootings, nor do consumers go blind drinking unregulated
bathtub gin. After years of waging a never-ending drug war, former Richmond
Police Chief Jerry Oliver ultimately came to the conclusion that all
substance abuse, legal or otherwise, is a public health problem and should
be treated as such. Prison cells and criminal records don't cure addiction.

Robert Sharpe, Washington, D.C.