KEEP DRUGS AWAY FROM CHILDREN

ADVOCATES Community Counseling director Coco Wellington was quoted on
soaring cocaine use among Massachusetts adolescents as saying: ''It's much
harder for a kid these days to walk into a liquor store and get booze. But
you can just walk up to any dealer on the street for cocaine'' (Page A1,
Oct. 30).

If politicians are serious about keeping drugs out of the hands of
children, they're going to have to come up with a common-sense plan that
does not involved abdicating to organized crime.

In Europe, the Netherlands has successfully reduced overall drug use by
replacing marijuana prohibition with adult regulation. Dutch rates of drug
use are significantly lower than US rates in every category. Separating the
hard and soft drug markets and establishing age controls for marijuana has
proven more effective than zero tolerance.

Here in the United States, marijuana provides the black market contacts
that introduce consumers to addictive drugs like cocaine. This ''gateway''
is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed policy.

ROBERT SHARPE, Program Officer, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, D.C.