Marion Barry

I should like to pass on to your readers a different point of view from those seen in letters (Aug. 24) pleading for leniency for Washington Mayor Marion Barry, who was recently convicted on a single cocaine count.

Recently, I talked with an old friend who has long been a prominent businessman and statesman in Colombia. He and many of his fellow Colombians are very angry over the “soft treatment” of Barry.

He said, “Why should the Colombian government be fighting such a grim and dangerous battle to defeat the drug czars when your country is the chief market for Colombian cocaine and you give no more than a slap on the wrist to a cocaine-using politician? Are you or are you not serious about helping us with our fight?”

T.E. NICHOLS

Long Beach