UNCONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

Complacency Is So Rampant, You Can't Just Say Go

Editor, The Times:

After having lived across the street from a drug house for 15 years
and having worked as an RN in both a detox center and a psychiatric
unit, I find former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper's drug theories
dangerous and deplorable ["Legalize drugs -- all of them," Times guest
commentary, Dec. 4].

If drug users would be responsible in any way for the problems they
cause, to themselves and to anyone unlucky enough to be part of their
lives, Stamper's theory might make some sense. Their drug use does not
have a positive effect on anyone. I don't remember taking the history
of a single drug user that didn't indicate it all started with
marijuana use.

Drug use may be illegal but if you lived with a drug house in your
neighborhood, you would doubt the police were aware of this law. Our
neighborhood put up with all that goes with drug houses -- dangerous
traffic and noise at all hours, loose pit bulls, fights, garbage
strewn all over, syringes and condoms in your yard, etc., etc. We had
neighborhood meetings with our local police commander and anti-drug
individuals.

Until I used the word "sue" -- since we were not getting the
protection our taxes were supposed to provide us -- we were treated
with less respect than the drug users [receive]. The word "sue" caused
a SWAT team raid and the end of the problems with the unsavory characters.

From my observations, drug use is a choice, not an illness that
taxpayers need to repeatedly have their money used for "cures" --
unless the drug user honestly wants to stop their drug use.

Bernice Malone, Mukilteo