DRUG WAR IS A LOSING BATTLE

Editor, Times-Dispatch: Regarding your editorial, "Deterrent," in which you
ponder the effects of prohibition on the behavior of drug smugglers: Where
drugs are concerned, the prices are so high, the profit margin so great,
and the demand so reliable that the unlawful market thrives despite any
deterrent. I suggest you revisit Economics 101 and review the subject of
supply and demand.

Not long ago there was a case in which trigger-happy jet fighters were so
anxious to shoot smugglers down that they killed innocent missionaries by
mistake. This appears to be fairly vigorous enforcement, yet the flow of
drugs was uninterrupted.

As we check our math by performing the same problem in reverse, let us all
ask ourselves if we are being deterred. If drugs were suddenly made legal,
would most of us run out and get heroin or cocaine? Hardly. Before drug
laws, the highest estimate of drug addiction was less than 2 percent of the
U.S. population. In all this time that number has drifted very little,
although most believe the problem to be a little bit worse. What do we get
for our $17 billion each year we continue the war on drugs?

Lennice Werth, Crewe