PROSECUTION WON'T WORK

Editor:

My initial appointment to the California State Board of Pharmacy was
prompted by a 60 minutes show on drug prescribing doctors (termed
"croakers") way back in late 1979 or early 1980. I served on the Board for
ten years helping to coordinate strike actions against those diverting
pharmaceutical drugs. The fiction that is being continued is that we can
stamp out drug abuse and related problems through vigorous prosecution and
little else. By not dealing with societal and family problems that lead to
drug abuse and related violence the stage is set for banging ones head
against the wall and when that doesn't work just bang harder. Kentucky's
"Promise" Project is not tomorrow's America; it is yesterday and today's
America. Just look at intrusive school drug testing programs, locker and
book bag searches, random stops of motor vehicles, no-knock warrants, and
all the other abandonments of Constitutional Rights that have characterized
our nation in the past twenty to thirty years. The problem in reducing
demand for truly dangerous drugs is that our credibility in the "drug war"
has been ruined by the inclusion of cannabis, a relatively innocuous
substance less harmful than either tobacco or alcohol. The net result of
vigorous prosecution as opposed to harm reduction is to simply raise the
price of illicit substances and provide a bonus to drug traffickers.

Jay R. Cavanaugh, Ph.D.

West Hills, CA