DRUG ROUNDUP WILL ONLY COST TAXPAYERS IN LONG RUN

The only long-range effect of the Huntington Violent Crime/Drug Task
Force's recent roundup of 14 people on conspiracy to distribute crack
cocaine charges will be a taxpayer expense of over $600,000 per prisoner if
they serve 20 -- year terms at a cost of $30,000 per year per inmate.

Prison spending could amount to over $8.4 million for this one drug bust
alone. And let's not forget the huge cost of a two-year investigation
involving dozens of officers diverted from preventing real crimes or the
fiscal burden these futile arrests put on the courts.

The potential prison expenditure for this one drug roundup would buy 600
new computers for West Virginia schools every year or hire 12 full time
teachers.

FBI agent John Joyce's inane belief that drug prohibition can really
"impact the (drug) problem" reminds me that, despite a great deal of
boasting and posturing for the media, Eliot Ness and the Prohibition-era
revenuers never put the booze barons out of business. Repeal and a
regulated market for adult alcohol use ended the bootleg era and put a stop
to the violence that went with Prohibition, not law enforcement.

Regulation works for alcohol and regulation will work for drugs.
Prohibition, on the other hand, has never worked for anything, anywhere,
anytime.

Redford Givens, San Francisco