END THE DRUG WAR

In his Dec. 24 letter, "The Drug-Terror Connection," Marc Grossman pointed
out that the United States has pumped billions of dollars into the drug
war, destroyed enormous amounts of drugs and shut down hundreds of drug
laboratories. What Mr. Grossman did not mention, however, is that with all
this time and money, we've barely made a dent in the drug problem.

We arrest users and dealers, and drugs are still prevalent on the streets,
circulating through schools and prisons like water. We've been doing this
for 30 years with the same lack of results. All we have now is the highest
incarceration rate in the world, with no reduction in the amount of drugs.

As for the connection to terrorism, Mr. Grossman also forgot to mention
that terrorists make their money from drugs because drugs are illegal. With
inflated black market prices, heroin sells for many times the price of
gold, affording the distributor huge percentages in profit. On the other
hand, if these drugs were regulated and sold out of pharmacies, the price
would plummet.

The drug war is no more of a success than alcohol prohibition was in the
1920s, and with terrorists using drug money to finance their operations, we
have yet another reason to end it.

ALAN REINER, Arlington