Pubdate: Thu, 07 Feb 2002 Source: Los Angeles Times (CA) Copyright: 2002 Los Angeles Times Contact: http://www.latimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248 Authors: Richard L. Root, Jerry Parsons, David Spanser The Office of National Drug Control Policy, through its ads televised during the Super Bowl [and in The Times, Page A15, Feb. 4], would have us believe that those who consume prohibited drugs are in effect supporting terrorists. This is simply typical drug-war-speak, rhetoric designed to emotionally rally support for escalation of the unwinnable war on noncorporate drugs. In tying drug-trade profits to terrorism this government agency clearly shows us why the drug war and prohibitions should end. Clearly, the more successful the efforts are in interrupting drug flow, the higher the profits become for those involved. The drug war thusly serves as a protection racket for those high profits. It's the ONDCP, our national drug policy and drug prohibition that have made simple garden products more valuable than gold and handed terrorists a means to support their activities on a silver platter. The yet-to-be-learned lesson of the drug war is that good intentions can become liberty-consuming bureaucracies creating their own reasons to exist and expand with time. Let's all pray the war on terrorism (a response to administer justice for the crimes of Sept. 11) does not become a similar institution. Richard L. Root, Westminster - - I find the recent television and print ads linking drug use and terrorism to be very disturbing. Although it is not unlikely that some drug money does get funneled to terrorist organizations, the sole reason for this is the current state of prohibition. Just as alcohol prohibition fueled organized crime back in the 1920s, the war on drugs fuels crime today. In 1929, when President Hoover appointed a commission to study the overwhelming disobedience to Prohibition, that commission concluded that Prohibition was unenforceable. Nothing has changed since then. Jerry Parsons, Long Beach - - So now the U.S. government thinks it's OK to blame drug users for the terrorist attacks. "I helped blow up buildings," said one young man in the commercial aired during the Super Bowl. Both spurious and sensationalist, this is the most offensive propaganda yet to come out of our futile war on drugs. Our drug money supports terrorism, but our oil money doesn't? When will we see the president and vice president in a commercial saying, "I helped blow up buildings"? David Spancer, Eagle Rock - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl