END WAR ON DRUGS

To the editor:

Dr. Clark Brittain's exceptional guest column, "Ending the war on drugs
would help end related violence and corruption" (April 24), clearly reveals
why the prohibition of drugs has never worked, will never work and can
never work, and why we should never consider connecting the war on
terrorism to this other continuing policy disaster, the drug war.

If we fight the war on terrorism like we've fought the war on drugs, can we
expect the same results?

Will terrorists multiply exponentially, be more powerful than ever, cheaper
to deploy and far deadlier than before? Can we expect terrorists to flood
across our borders in an unstoppable deluge? How many more prisons will it
take to hold all these terrorists, when we already lock up more of our
people than any nation on earth, thanks to the drug war? Will the few civil
liberties remaining after the war on drugs now fall prey to the war on
terrorism?

Apparently the definition of "terrorists" will evolve and change on the
whim of anonymous bureaucrats, just as the latest so-called drug epidemic
is as predictable as the annual government budget battles and the
appointment of the next drug czar.

If our loss of freedoms and civil liberties determines the health of our
republic. Thanks to the war on drugs, our nation is on life support, and
this latest endless war could quite likely drive a stake through her heart.

End the war on drugs, before it ends us.

Mike Plylar

Kremmling, Colo.