War on Drugs

Your editorial remark on “the all-important war on drugs” (Jan. 15) seems to assume that we are really at war, that we know what we’re doing and that we intend to win it. Hogwash! Three days before President Bush declared our latest drug “war,” The Economist had already labeled it “Mission Impossible.”

War needs an enemy; in a sense, it’s all of us. The eagerness of humans to use mood-altering substances is a universal fact. Since we have learned to tolerate--and legally exploit--tobacco and alcohol, it is unrealistic to expect compliance with the prohibition of other substances.

So long as the illicit traffic remains so fantastically profitable, effective control is impossible. If we had the courage to decriminalize drugs, as we did before 1914, we could remove the main source of crime. We should require our public health authorities to regulate their distribution; this would include levying taxes to support programs of rehabilitation and education.

MARSHALL PHILLIPS

Long Beach