SHOULD ILLEGAL DRUGS BE DECRIMINALIZED?

Give Up Losing Battle

I part company with my ultraconservative friends on legalizing drugs. Nolan
Finley is correct: The so-called war on drugs has been a disaster, and a
radically new approach is called for ("While Canada explores legalizing
pot, America's drug war escalates," Sept. 22).

Drug prohibition -- combined with a decades-old, ineffective and
monstrously expensive campaign against producers and peddlers of drugs --
has been a miserable failure. Worse, the prohibition of drugs is directly
responsible for the crime and misery associated with the drug trade -- and
a major reason that parts of Detroit, Newark and similar cities resemble
Third World hellholes like Mogadishu.

To paraphrase a familiar saying, only an idiot persists in doing the same
thing in hopes of getting a different result.

Our Canadian neighbors are willing to try a different approach, and I
applaud them. Legalizing pot -- and controlling its production and
distribution -- couldn't possibly make things worse, but it might help to
combat drug use more effectively.

A. Ladak, Warren