DRUG EDITORIAL 'DISPLAYS FANTASY NOTIONS'

Your Aug. 1 editorial about drug legalization was ridiculous.

You say it would be great if legalized drugs didn't get into the hands of
kids, but then you feel the need to cite a bit of reality: Things don't
work that way.

However, it is your editorial that displays fantasy notions.

It is the illegal status of some drugs that makes them so available to
kids. Why that is so difficult to understand is beyond me.

The prohibition of these substances puts their production and delivery into
the hands of crime rings. Criminals don't abide by marketing regulations.

Criminals do whatever they can to mitigate their own risk of being caught
and to maximize their profits. Criminals recruit kids to sell drugs,
because kids can work the lucrative school campuses, and because kids face
juvenile charges, less severe repercussions.

A kid is less likely to fear those charges than the consequences of
testifying against a drug dealer. Kids don't card other kids when selling
stuff out of their sixth-grade lockers.

If you have any doubts about this, ask the young interns on your staff to
think back a few years and ponder on the following question: What was
easier to get: legal cigarettes or illegal marijuana joints?

Drug legalization isn't about opening up the availability of harmful
substances to our kids. It's about (in part, at least) whether or not we
want these substances sold by those who will card their customers - after
all, we know these substances are going to be sold by somebody.

OK, I'm done ranting. You can go back to your comfortable illusions of drug
prohibition actually doing some good.

Paul Miller

Woodbridge, Va.