ALCOHOL'S TOLL ON OUR TEEN-AGERS

As a high school health teacher, I teach with passion and urgency because I
believe that if my students don't learn what they need to learn, they may
die prematurely or, at best, have a very unhappy, low quality of life.

It really troubles me when I read letters in Viewpoints from members of the
Drug Policy Forum pushing for the legalization of drugs and claiming that
by legalizing drugs there will be no more pushers or drug-related crimes.

They often cite the failure of alcohol Prohibition as a good example of why
we should end the "war on drugs." But this argument does not hold water.

Alcohol is the most consumed drug in our society. It is the No. 1 killer of
teen-agers, a leading cause of divorce and a major cause of violent crime.

There are 3.5 million teen-agers who are addicted to alcohol. The DPF
people often cite statistics of how many more alcohol addicts there are in
comparison to heroin addicts. And it's true there are more.

But the reason alcohol is such a problem to society is because it is legal
and available, and it is the most commercialized product in our society.

Only 5 percent of high school seniors report using cocaine, while 85
percent of them admit using alcohol.

If we put cocaine, heroin and marijuana on the legal market, we could
certainly expect usage to escalate and pushers to increase -- pushers would
simply be the open market.

Would there be a reduction in crime? Absolutely.

And if we made murder, sexual assault and robbery legal, we would get an
even larger reduction in crime.

Boyce Honea, Houston