Times Series on Cocaine

The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from your outstanding articles on the cocaine trade is that it is now totally out of control. The enormous profits involved in the traffic in illicit drugs make it the main source of crime and corruption in our society, and all of us pay a cruel price for this. We need a radically different approach, starting with recognition that drug abuse has to be seen primarily as a medical rather than a criminal problem.

Drug use--including abuse--is a human predilection that laws will never effectively control. Most drugs, as such, do not inspire anti-social behavior, but outlawing them makes them expensive, so the addict is often driven to crime to support his/her habit. (Britain long ago decided that heroin addicts registered with physicians could receive maintenance doses for pennies a day.)

Our government should ask the medical profession, under overall supervision of the U.S. Public Health Service, to design and administer a system for dispensing “controllable substances” that would minimize the profit motive without encouraging addiction. It should provide for sufficient taxes and fees to support the system, including programs of drug abuse education and treatment.

To avoid the appearance of profiting from drug use, government at all levels should resist imposing heavy taxes like those already levied on alcohol and tobacco--drugs that cause great harm to our society but that we condone, exploit and even subsidize.

Decriminalization of most drugs now in common use would make it easier to take vigorous action to eliminate those inherently dangerous synthetic drugs like PCB can induce totally unpredictable behavior.

Getting rid of the ineptitude and hypocrisy that characterize our official programs on drugs would do much to restore the public’s faith in government.

MARSHALL PHILLIPS

Long Beach