DEFINITION OF IRONY

Here we go again. Another knee-jerk reaction to Doonesbury by one of those
who just doesn't get it. While Jean Witte (" 'Doonesbury' damaging," Feb.
17) is busy looking up marijuana in her encyclopedia, she should look in
her dictionary for the definition of irony.

The cartoon in question was making an ironic point: the illegal marijuana
saying it had caused no deaths, only arrests, while talking to the legal
cigarette who was bragging about the deaths tobacco had caused, while both
were drinking legal alcohol, which is well documented to be a killer. Jean
is "betrayed" because the paper didn't censor a cartoon with an idea she
doesn't agree with.

Millions of dollars are spent to entice people to smoke cigarettes and
drink alcohol, known killers, yet "billions of taxpayer dollars are spent
on drug interdiction . . ." to very little effect other than crowding our
jails with people who just wanted to feel better.

The War on Drugs is a sham, and, indeed, the worst effects of drugs -- the
gangs, the violence, the corruption of officials, the crime to support
habits -- are all direct results of drug interdiction, just as they were
during Prohibition in the 1920s.

Ironic, isn't it, that we never seem to learn.

Raymond K. Clark Littleton