Source: Contra Costa Times, Letters Section, 8/15/97
Contact: cctletrs@netcom.omc

End the drug war

I suppose many are aghast at the rise in and relocation of youth drug
arrests Crimes, July 29).

It is no longer just the ghetto's problem, it has now become ours as well.
Our middle to upperclass incomes and values have not spared us this shame.
So the police must beef up the army necessary to combat this war we've
waged on drugs, focusing on battling the enemy at hand, our own children,
instead of this new age's criminals and the horrendous new age crimes they
are creating, unimaginable to us, before the war began.

Our once brave boys in blue are now spending their crimefighting time on
patrol for these, our adolescents, guilty of no crime other than to perhaps
momentarily escape this horrible world being created, virtually unsubdued,
through some chemical or herbal means.

The time has come to call a truce in the war.

Legalization and standardization of drugs is the only end in sight.

Granted, unemployment would initially soar as 65 percent of our soldiers'
duties would no longer be needed.

But perhaps government taxation of drugs could be used to create some new
and gentler jobs for them.

Shelley Anderson

Martinez, CA