How to End Violence

Your editorial (“How Many More Must Die?,” Sept. 29) mourns the tragic death of 13-year-old Diane Rosalez, killed in a spray of gunfire intended for a drug-dealing neighbor in her apartment building, and asks: “How many more Diane Rosalezes will have to die before a way is found to stop the violence?”

We all know of a simple way to stop it today: legalize drugs.

It may be difficult for some to accept in this period of hysterical anti-drug propaganda, but, as most law enforcement personnel will attest, the vast majority of societal problems attributed to illegal drugs are a result of the fact that they are illegal, not because of some property of the drugs themselves.

A tightly regulated and controlled system by which drugs could be obtained legally and at cost would put an immediate and permanent end to the “drug war” as we know it.

Of course, we would continue to have individuals with drug-related problems (as we currently do not only with illegal drugs but primarily with legalized alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs and caffeine), but these could and should be dealt with on an individual basis as medical and behavioral problems and not as law-enforcement ones.

By freeing up the financial and personnel resources we now devote to shoring up our absurd and futile drug policies, we could provide our society with the large-scale access to drug education and treatment which it badly needs now, as well as rid our cities and neighborhoods of crime, and saving the lives of thousands of other Diane Rosalezes.

RANDALL SMITH

San Diego