LEGALIZE DRUGS AND USE PROFITS FOR SOCIAL NEEDS

How wonderful to read Spencer M. Neal's letter suggesting decriminalization
of illegal drugs (Sept. 18). While I once believed laws that deal with
"moral" issues such as this were acceptable, I have come to think that the
better way to deal with these matters to take a profit from them for social
services.

Why not simply end the present prohibition of street drugs such as
marijuana, heroin and cocaine by selling these products in liquor stores,
along with alcohol? (A drug is a drug is a drug, some believe.) A fair tax
might be added to the street prince. This might actually cut enough
middleman profit that legal, taxed purchases of decriminalized drugs would
cost users less than street sales.

Advantages include known dosage and purity. One could put warning labels on
the packages. Taxes coming in for social use would replace the expense of
the government's "war on drugs." Just imagine how many dollars might be
shifted from the war and the waste and directed toward education and other
human services, such as treatment and rehabilitation of recovering addicts.

Miriam Mathews-Weinbender,
Pacific City