STOP THE FLOW OF DRUGS INTO U.S.

A young woman lies in a field after a heroin overdose! Andrew Glazer's
front-page article "Heroin: Pure, Cheaper, Deadlier" in the Dec. 1, Herald
News is a depressing commentary that reminds us illegal drugs continue to
rob young people from our neighborhoods and our futures.

What is our defense?

Drug abuse has been doing its dirty work long enough.

Politicians need to finally put their votes where their mouths are and
consider the problem a matter of life and death.

Newspapers reveal how this drug network was uncovered, how these drug
pushers were apprehended and how these many pounds of dangerous drug
substances were confiscated. That's not enough!

It's the old story of Sisyphus rolling a big rock uphill, watching it roll
down, then rolling it back up again.

We need to get to the evil heart of the matter of illegal drugs and drive a
stake through it.

The war on terrorism must include major battles on drug trafficking.
America needs to take seriously the protection of its borders, implementing
a stringent immigration policy, and stop closing its eyes to certain
friendly countries whose economies unfortunately depend on the
manufacturing and sale of illegal drugs.

Unless we destroy the root of this problem, dope smugglers will go on
taking our young people away from us forever. Lack of serious combat
against drug addiction is a concession we cannot afford.

Is the drug problem anything less than one more weapon of mass destruction?

Sal Amico M. Buttaci,

Lodi