Officer Candidates’ Past Drug Use

“Past Drug Use, Future Cops” (June 18), revealing the extent of police candidates’ histories of drug use, is yet more evidence of the hypocrisy of drug prohibition or, rather, the hypocrisy of prohibiting some drugs.

The question that needs to be asked is: Who profits from continued prohibition and whom do the current drug laws serve? Clearly, while politicians bluster about the scourge of “drugs,” oversimplifying the problem in the process, these laws and the threat they pose to our civil liberties are far more dangerous than the use of illegal substances.

DAVID SCHWANKLE

Riverside

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Your article correctly points out that almost 600,000 people were arrested in 1998 for simple possession of marijuana and are subject to a range of penalties including the loss of a driver’s license, loss of financial aid for students, deportation of legal and illegal immigrants and imprisonment for up to life. And who is arresting those 600,000 marijuana smokers? Why, cops who used to smoke marijuana!

What better illustration do we need that this insane war on drugs is really a war on ourselves and our civil liberties? If you can smoke pot and still be a responsible policeman, or speaker of the House, or vice president, or president, or presidential candidate, then how can we justify the wasted expense and ruined lives of our drug policies?

The question I want to ask cops and politicians, for that matter, is not “Have you ever smoked marijuana?” The better question is, “Since you smoked marijuana and know firsthand that it didn’t harm you or all your friends who also experimented with it, how can you justify our draconian drug laws?”

REILLY POLLARD

Goleta