THE DANGER IN ENFORCING DRUG PROHIBITION

Re: "6 arrested in Boulder drug raids," June 16 news story.

If cannabis were legal, we wouldn't have violent police actions over it
taking place in Boulder hotel parking lots, as happened June 15 outside the
Ramada Inn. We wouldn't have pot dealers checking-in to hotels with
reefer-laden duffel bags in the first place. There'd be no need for gunplay
in the public square (the suspects were evidently unarmed), nor for a
wounded pot courier to flee in a bullet-riddled auto, only to crash several
blocks away. A law enforcement group known as the Boulder County Drug Task
Force, under the supervision of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, had
hoped to cap an 18-month-long investigation into a pot-running enterprise
that allegedly was planning to cash in on the steady market for good
marijuana that's traditionally made Boulder such a pot dealers' paradise.

Unfortunately, the bust went sour when one of the suspects failed to meekly
surrender and decided to beat a hasty motorized retreat, knocking down an
officer and receiving gunfire to his shoulder on the way. He later crashed
on the side of a city avenue. Thank God no one else was hurt.

If we had a rational drug policy, that is if pot were decriminalized, this
tragic event would never have happened. Instead, pot dealers would
innocuously do business side by competitive side with liquor peddlers and
tobacco merchants, taxed, regulated and under control. The poor guys on the
Drug Task Force could then breathe a sigh of relief and go back to
patrolling Boulder's byways for real criminals, happy to be unburdened of
the frustrating and dangerous task of enforcing this impossible prohibition.

CORD MacGUIRE

Boulder