AMERICA'S DRUG WAR TRAGEDY

Many thanks to Hiroshi Ohta and Michael L. Lahr for exposing drug
prohibition for what it is in their Nov. 22 article, "Protecting the public
from the threats of terror and depression." The war on drugs is a clear and
present danger to world civilization. In light of America's latest war and
catastrophe, maybe it's long past the time for a closer examination of our
past, current and future policies.

Can our countries afford the luxury of excessive, deadly and disastrous
civil wars, such as the war on drugs, which devours fully 50 percent of the
law enforcement resources in the United States, while terrorists, wishing
us the gravest of harm, live, move and train right here among us?

Are our priorities skewed? Ask any postal worker if he or she would not
feel relieved if the white powder leaking from an envelope on the sorting
table turned out to be cocaine instead of some truly lethal biological
agent. How would anyone feel? "Thank God it's only cocaine."

While Americans and our allies for decades have dedicated phenomenal
amounts of the world's resources in the search 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 of the U.S. government's drug
war blunder, and that's the real world tragedy.

MIKE PLYLAR

Kremmling, Colorado