DRUG NETWORK USES MEDIA

Thank you for Doug Clark's clear-headed column against legalizing drugs
(Oct. 23). You no doubt will receive hundreds, if not thousands, of
letters from drug-legalization proponents who say you are wrong. (You
are not.)

This is an orchestrated protest that occurs every time a newspaper
publishes an editorial or article that displeases the legalizers. For
several years, they have posted to the DrugSense Media Awareness
Project, an Internet Web site they created
(http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews), copyrighted newspaper articles from
publications throughout the world.

This site also teaches browsers how to write brief letters to the editor
to protest any point of view that varies from their own. And it extends
the protest to news articles that convey information with which they
disagree.

Articles particularly offensive to them earn a "DrugSense Alert," which
goes out to a large Internet list asking for immediate letter-writing
action.

DrugSense knows that newspapers try to balance viewpoints received in
letters to the editor. They are determined to overwhelm publishers by
inflating the ratio of letters that espouse their point of view. In
other words, they are trying to manipulate the media.

Some newspapers have responded by refusing to publish any letters about
drug abuse and addiction. Such a response eliminates the public's
ability to voice a variety of viewpoints about a problem as complex as
drug abuse and addiction.

Today, some 105 million Americans regularly use alcohol, and some 65
million regularly use tobacco, society's two legal addictive drugs.
These levels of use produce 530,700 deaths each year. In contrast, 14
million Americans regularly use illicit drugs, producing about 16,000
deaths a year. Keeping drugs illegal holds down drug use, abuse,
addiction and death. If we were to legalize drugs, we would create
legal industries that would use some of their revenues to advertise and
market to increase consumption and some to contribute to political
campaigns to block regulation. Soon, use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin
and other drugs would reach today's levels of alcohol and tobacco use.
Abuse, addiction and death rates would escalate proportionately.

Sue Rusche, Atlanta, Ga.