A Sober Look at Legalization

I wish Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray could spend a little time with Mathea Falco (“Find the Right Road to a Drug-Free America,” Feb. 14).

She has a beginning understanding about the ineffectiveness of our current drug laws. But she deals with the issue of legalization like a neophyte.

She says legalization would create a different kind of crime problem but does not define it. She talks about a black market developing among those who are not allowed access to cheap drugs as if it is not already the case. She does not understand that crack would never be the drug of choice were coke available at crack prices.

She unfairly speaks of legalization/decriminalization advocates as persons who approve of drug use.

Drug legalization policies that spend drug prevention dollars on education and rehabilitation imply absolutely no social approval.

Education and rehabilitation, on the contrary, erect real and meaningful barriers to drug use that originate with the growth of individuals.

Money is the push behind drugs. Drugs in and of themselves are not satisfying. Legalization removes the money and the push behind drugs.

One final thought from someone who has three boys between 11 and 15 years, who has listened to Judge Gray and Orange County Dist. Atty. Mike Capizzi argue the pros and cons, and one who rarely has a drink: Middle-class folk are often against legalization because they don’t trust their kids to make the right choice, while poorer, inner-city folk think legalization means an acceptance of what they see on the streets.

The middle-class is wrong to ask society to do a parent’s job. And the inner city will never change for the better until drugs are overthrown from their economic leadership role.

MARK TABBERT

Irvine