HOW ABOUT AGONY INFLICTED ON INNOCENT PEOPLE?

How about the agony inflicted on a lot of innocent people by the war on
drugs, by SWAT teams busting down doors, by the carnage on our streets in
turf wars, by the killing of good police officers in shootouts with
dealers, by the corruption of once good police officers and civil servants
here and in Mexico, by the fact that young black kids are sucked out of
school and into the streets by the profits that can be made selling drugs,
and by the sight of U.S. helicopters flying around Colombia trying to
suppress guerrillas supported by the illegal profits the war creates.

Yes, if it were legal for adults to sell drugs to adults, more adults would
probably use them and that would not be good. But then most of the damage
would be suffered by the guilty, by the people actually putting drugs into
their bodies. A greater use of drugs could become a public health problem,
but only if the public chooses to make it one by wrong-headedly deciding
that it should provide care to the drug users free of charge and thereby
take some of the risk out of drug use. America then might have a lot more
drug users, but it would still function quite nicely. In fact better,
because then life would be much less violent.

Robert C. Richards

Sanford, N.C.