Legalizing Cocaine

This is in response to Richard J. Chrystie’s letter (Jan. 10), “Solution to Cocaine Problem Is Legalize It.”

My first reaction was anger and amazement, but upon reflection and many re-readings, I am filled with sadness. Sadness that a public servant of 19 years could suffer such total burnout and frustration.

I have no doubt that a substantial majority of all crimes are drug related, but no evil is ever stopped by making it legal. Drug abuse and drug use are killers. Cocaine, heroin and marijuana are killers.

I invite Chrystie to the neo-natal ward of UCLA to view babies born with addictions, and who must go through withdrawal because their mothers used these drugs during pregnancy. I invite him to view these same children at age 3 and 4 who still suffer severe damage.

I invite him to visit former basketball star Len Bias’ mother. I invite him to visit a rehabilitation center for teen-age addicts, and watch their life-and-death struggle to overcome addition.

I invite him to a parents’ self-help group where these parents try to learn to live with the reality that their children, once bright and full of life and hope, are now burned-out shells and will never realize their potential because drugs have destroyed them.

Maybe we cannot stop the supply--maybe all those billions of dollars should be used to stop the demand. Only through education and prevention will the drug problem be solved.

When the television, music, and motion picture industries use their vast influence to show drugs as killers; when the leaders in sports, business and politics take an active role; when programs like the Los Angeles Police Department’s D.A.R.E. are in every school in the United States--then we can win this war!

I invite every citizen to help stop the demand for drugs and become “foot soldiers” in the war against drugs.

JANET KLANE

Beverly Hills

Klane is president of Associates for Troubled Children.