President Bush’s Plan to Fight Drugs

I am horrified at the speech President Bush has made on the drug problem. I agree with him on two counts: that it is a very serious problem indeed, and that the Colombian drug lords must be stopped.

After that I part company with the President. I believe the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the supreme law of the land. George Bush has been attempting to trash our First Amendment on the flag-burning issue. Now he is going all-out to finish off our tattered Fourth Amendment and the rest of it. This will never solve the drug problem; rather it will create more problems.

Addicts will not stop taking drugs until they decide to get the help they need. Until they do this, they will feed their addictions any way they can. Cracking down on them and pushers will only raise the price of drugs and this will necessitate more crime on the part of addicts. Meanwhile, of course, while the police are chasing down casual users, this and other crime will go unprevented and unpunished.

I personally think the casual use of drugs is stupid and immoral, but this is supposed to be a free country (highly questionable at best) and adults should be free to be stupid and immoral.

We must get real about this very soon or we will become a Third-World dictatorship with near-universal poverty. Taxpayers cannot afford still more police, courts and jails. (No new taxes my foot!) There are already too many bureaucrats, agencies and laws. Decriminalization of drugs is the best idea as it certainly would never make the problem worse.

In any case, the drug problem will not go away soon no matter how we handle it, and it will not go away at all if we don’t turn our attention to people being born now. We must encourage a high degree of self-esteem in children from day one. If they have the “I am somebody” attitude and can say “no!” and stand their ground, that will go further to solve the drug problem than all laws and repression in the world.

If President Bush wants to spend billions on a crackdown, let it be on child abuse, not drug abuse.

ALICE LILLIE

Los Angeles