WE MUST REASSESS OUR DRUG POLICY

Maybe Don Strange ("Narcotics bureau leader gives state ultimatum on cuts,"
Dec.19, IA) speaks the truth and doesn't even realize it when he states,
"The people of Mississippi had better get their priorities straight on drug
traffic."

The time has clearly come to get past these simplistic government dictates
that have never, will never and can never work. Let Don Strange resign and
replace him with someone with an honest understanding of drugs and the
policies that actually work to reduce the harm of drug black markets on
society.

Our ancestors realized that, for what harm alcohol may do, prohibition is
far worse. By now, the same should be clear to most Americans about drugs.

In light of America's latest war and catastrophe, maybe a closer
examination of our past, current and future policies - both foreign and
domestic - is long overdue.

Can we afford the luxury of an excessive, deadly and disastrous civil war
like the war on drugs, which devours fully 50 percent of all our law
enforcement resources, while terrorists, wishing Americans the gravest of
harm, live, move and train right here among us?

Are our national priorities skewed? Ask any postal worker if the white
powder leaking from an envelope on their sorting table turns out to be
cocaine instead of some truly lethal biological agent. Would they feel
relieved? In their situation, how would you feel? Thank God it's only cocaine.

While Americans have chased each other for decades, dedicating phenomenal
amounts of our national assets searching for all manner of illegal plants,
pills, powders and the like, our real enemies have literally invaded us. We
all continue to pay the price for our government's drug war blunder - and
that's the real national tragedy.

Mike Plylar

Kremmling, Colo.