SUPER BOWL ADVERTISEMENTS NO WAY TO STOP DRUG USE

Super Propaganda

Your Feb. 18 editorial was right about reducing drug use through education.
However, demand reduction was not the purpose of the $3.2 million worth of
Super Bowl ads. The taxpayer-funded ads were an opportunistic attempt to
link an unpopular drug war to the overwhelmingly popular war on terrorism.

Hysterical antidrug claims have zero credibility among skeptical youth.

The illicit drug of choice in this country is domestically grown marijuana,
not Afghan heroin or Colombian cocaine. After watching the Super Bowl
propaganda, naive viewers might mistakenly conclude that marijuana smokers
are responsible for Sept. 11. That's no accident.

Taxing and regulating marijuana would render the drug war obsolete. As long
as marijuana remains illegal and distributed by organized crime, consumers
will come into contact with hard drugs like cocaine and heroin.

With drug war jobs at risk, drug warriors are cynically using drug
prohibition's collateral damage to justify its continuation.

ROBERT SHARPE, Washington, D.C.

The writer is a program officer with Drug Policy Alliance, which promotes
reform of U.S. drug policies.

FINANCING TERRORISTS

Regarding your thoughtful editorial "Those Super Bowl Anti-Drug Ads" (Feb.
18): Prohibition is the financial engine that fuels both organized crime at
home and international terrorists abroad.

Not drugs. When Bayer heroin was legally available in local pharmacies for
about the same price as Bayer aspirin, organized crime was not involved in
recreational drugs. When alcohol was no longer illegal, organized crime was
no longer involved in the alcohol business. Almost all of our "drug
related" crime is actually drug prohibition caused crime. Drugs don't cause
crime.

Drug prohibition does. Drugs don't finance terrorist.

Drug prohibition does.

KIRK MUSE, Mesa, Ariz.

REPEAL DRUG PROHIBITION

The amount of illogic in your Feb. 18 editorial praising the anti-drug ads
during the Super Bowl is quite astounding. You buy the government
propaganda hook, line and sinker.

I thought I had become accustomed to the mindless pitter-patter of the
media when regurgitating the official government position, but somehow
yours opens new frontiers. The only reason the powdery product of the poppy
plant known as heroin is worth hundreds or thousands of dollars is that
governments across the globe have declared that the pile of powder is
contraband - illegal.

Prior to that declaration in 1912, The Hague Convention, the powder was
worth only pennies, or fractions thereof. It is the U.S. government that
absolutely insists that such substances be kept illegal and their value
grossly inflated.

It is the U.S. government that thus insists that these powders be sold on
black markets.

It is the U.S. government and its media lapdog that refuse to engage in
rational public debate about ending the black markets and thus denying the
terrorists the obscene profits of drug trafficking. Osama bin Laden or any
other criminally minded person can become quite wealthy indeed because of
the black markets that thrive only because the government refuses to
deactivate them by repealing the drug prohibition. I'm certain you won't
publish this letter, but I feel better having written it. You shirk your
civic and professional obligation by suppressing public discussion about
this most important policy issue.

Shame on you!

RICHARD SINNOTT, Fort Pierce