‘Bennett the Drug Czar’

Bennett’s statements that he would advocate suspending our constitutional rights are the natural progression of an ever-more fascistic approach by our government to the drug problem.

Elected officials are playing on people’s legitimate fears about the horrible crimes associated with drug gangs and dealers. They are advocating increased police force against the problem because that is an easy and immediate thing to do. However, the cure these officials are advocating could be more untenable than the disease.

People seem to forget that there is a demand side to the drug problem. There are millions of regular users of marijuana, cocaine, and other drugs. Most of these drug users are not violent people. They are escapists and pleasure seekers, just like the guy at the local bar downing beer after beer.

Until the drug users in this country can be somehow persuaded to give up their habit, there will continue to be a booming drug market and low-life entrepreneurs cruelly competing for business in this illegal arena.

If you want someone to blame for our drug problem, look at your friends at parties who are smoking a joint or sniffing cocaine. These are the people who ultimately will be responsible for you having to dump out the contents of your luggage for inspection, or you having to take a drug test to get a job. Or, as Bennett would have it, for being stopped and searched on the street without a warrant by a military policeman.

As someone who does not use drugs, I am alarmed that my civil liberties and those of my friends may be endangered by a government blindly charging ahead in a misguided war on drugs.

Before unwarranted force against civilians is unleashed, the true root cause of the problem--a great number of people anesthetizing themselves against reality--should be faced and dealt with.

All the dogs, barbed wire and guns in the world are not going to prevent the transaction between junkie and dealer if both feel they have something to gain from the experience.

LAURA BROWN

Pasadena