SHOULD ILLEGAL DRUGS BE DECRIMINALIZED?

Baltimore's Record Distorted

This is in response to the Sept. 13 interview with drug czar John Walters
("Drug
czar Walters: Marijuana most abused drug"). Walters makes reference to
Baltimore
during my tenure as mayor. Besides mischaracterizing my views on drug policy
reform, he notes that, during my tenure, "Baltimore had no new of office
buildings
built" and was "more damaged by the drug problem than any city in American
history."

Not only did we have new office buildings built, but we built two professional
sports stadiums in the city, one for football and one for baseball. We
tripled the
size of our convention center with a new addition. We opened two new
museums and
built the first thousand-room hotel complex on the water's edge of the
Baltimore
Inner Harbor.

It is true that we had intravenous drug users who caused severe problems
for our
community. However, our approach to this problem had successes, which
Walters fails
to mention. Our needle exchange program helped to reduce the spread of AIDS
in this
community. A Johns Hopkins study of the program convinced the Maryland
Legislature
to recognize the effectiveness of syringe exchange as one tool in combating
AIDS.
It also contributed to the change of attitude by the Department of Health
and Human
Services, which now concludes that syringe exchange programs do not
increase drug
usage.

I strongly believe that because of the narrow perspective of John Walters and
others like him, the war on drugs has become our domestic Vietnam.

Kurt L. Schmoke, Baltimore