PROHIBITION AIDS TERRORISTS

EDITOR: President Bush says that "drug users aid terrorists." I
disagree. The consequences of your war on drugs aid terrorists more
than any pot-smoker, cocaine snorter or heroin user does.

Terrorists reap the benefits of the black market created by your
philosophy. Do you see terrorists trying to import cans of beer or
cartons of cigarettes?

This black market invites all sorts of disreputable people to try to
get a cut of the pie. The drug war has empowered not just terrorists
but gang leaders across America.

Prohibition has created the shoot outs and street wars that occur to
protect their "turf" and profits. When is the last time you read about
a shootout between a Budweiser and Miller salesman over space in a
grocery store?

The propaganda spouted is that drugs destroy lives. Sure, some people
have destroyed their lives using drugs.

But government, in the name of the war on drugs, has destroyed the
lives of many who otherwise would have been productive law-abiding
citizens.

Prohibition of alcohol in the '20s created a new class of criminals,
just like it does now, but it only took ten years to learn this lesson.

How long will it take this time?

Christopher Cook,
Wilmington