NOT THE SOLUTION

Your Tuesday article "Deputies putting a stop to pot" suggests that
pulling up pot plants works. It does not. Prohibition works only when
so many people agree with it that it is not needed. It was true of
alcohol in the 1920s and it is true of pot today.

The best solution to our pot problems is to undercut the street price
by selling pot in state-run pot stores modeled on Pennsylvania's
state-run liquor stores. Good pot now retails for the price of gold,
so it offers extra revenue to pay deputies to make arrests for public
smoking, for DUI and for selling untaxed pot on the street, same way
we dried up the illegal alcohol market after alcohol prohibition ended
in the 1930s.

But we should go one step beyond the 1930s by using part of that huge
revenue stream to offer free drug treatment to all who ask.
This solution would give our deputies a chance for success.

JOHN CHASE
Palm Harbor, Fla.