DRUG DANGERS

Steve Chapman's "The war on drugs vs. the war on terrorism" (Commentary,
Nov. 10) is frightening. While Chapman cannot deny the historic and direct
connection between drug trafficking and terrorism, he suggests that we
should make cocaine legal. If teddy bears were illegal, he says, then the
terrorists would sell teddy bears.

How many people will die tonight from hugging teddy bears? At least four
will die from cocaine.

There is no question that the major illegal drug trafficking source
countries fuel terrorist groups, and have done so since the opium war in
China 150 years ago. Recently terrorist groups attempted to trade heroin
for missiles, and cocaine for grenade launchers and $25 million worth of
weapons.

The way to hurt the terrorists is to seize their assets, to destroy the
drug trafficking networks and to reduce the demand for illegal drugs.

Chapman does not comment on how drugs that are now illegal would affect our
population in terms of health, addiction, productivity, accidents, social
welfare and health costs, vigilance or safety. He suggests that if drugs
were legal there would be no organized crime. Who is he kidding?

England made available heroin to registered addicts 30 years ago in the
hope, as Chapman suggests, that it would eliminate illegal drug trafficking
and organized crime. The registered addicts received the less potent and
safe heroin at their chemists (drug stores) and then immediately went out
and bought more powerful stuff illegally. Illegal heroin imports doubled in
the United Kingdom. So did the time Scotland Yard spent on the heroin
trade. The U.K. abandoned that idea very quickly.

Let's applaud the parent groups, scientists, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration and the United Nations that recognize marijuana, cocaine and
heroin for what they are: unsafe, unhealthy and illegal.

Peter B. Bensinger, Chairman

Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority,

Former administrator, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration