A BASIC TRUTH

In the letter headed "Wrong again" in the April 14 Macon Telegraph,
Lee Cooper actually states a very basic truth, but still seems to not
understand it. Mr. Cooper talks about a case of overdose on cocaine
and Ecstasy and another case where someone writes bad checks to
purchase drugs and winds up in jail away from his family.

Mr. Cooper then concludes sarcastically that "neither case would have
occurred if drugs were legal." Well, Mr. Cooper, that is exactly
right. If drugs were legal and controlled, no one would need to write
bad checks to purchase them because users would not be paying
inflated prices to support an unregulated criminal black market, the
user would not be torn away from his family and thrown in jail, and
overdoses would be greatly reduced because users would know exactly
the purity, and dosage, of the drugs they are buying.

It then becomes a matter of personal responsibility. The most basic
of all survival skills requires each of us to learn how to live in
world full of various dangers, including drugs, or face the
consequences for our errors.

David Lane
Santa Cruz, Calif.