DRUG DISASTER FOR KIDS

The Chronicle Aug. 21 article, "Teens: Pot easier buy than cigarettes,
beer," reported on teen drug use and said that "63 percent of students said
their schools are 'drug-free'." What a farce. Just ask any teenager and
watch his eyes roll: No school is "drug free."

The survey did correctly note that illegal markets, the creation of drug
prohibition, have made illegal drugs easier for teens to get than legal
drugs in regulated markets. But Humpty Dumpty insists that drug prohibition
"protects our children" -- go figure.

By age 21, there is about a 75 percent chance that a young person has used
an illegal drug. Officials don't talk much about that statistic.

Drug prohibition has helped to make drug experimentation rampant, and it is
this experimentation with illegal drugs -- whose identity or potency is
unclear -- that accounts for some 80 percent of the deaths related to
illegal drug use.

Don't let the drug propaganda machine hide the fact that drug prohibition
(no matter how well-intentioned) is a disaster for our children.

Jerry Epstein, president,

Drug Policy Forum of Texas,

Houston