Pubdate: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 Source: Denver Rocky Mountain News (CO) Copyright: 2002, Denver Publishing Co. Contact: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/371 Author: Raymond K. Clark DEFINITION OF IRONY Here we go again. Another knee-jerk reaction to Doonesbury by one of those who just doesn't get it. While Jean Witte (" 'Doonesbury' damaging," Feb. 17) is busy looking up marijuana in her encyclopedia, she should look in her dictionary for the definition of irony. The cartoon in question was making an ironic point: the illegal marijuana saying it had caused no deaths, only arrests, while talking to the legal cigarette who was bragging about the deaths tobacco had caused, while both were drinking legal alcohol, which is well documented to be a killer. Jean is "betrayed" because the paper didn't censor a cartoon with an idea she doesn't agree with. Millions of dollars are spent to entice people to smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, known killers, yet "billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on drug interdiction . . ." to very little effect other than crowding our jails with people who just wanted to feel better. The War on Drugs is a sham, and, indeed, the worst effects of drugs -- the gangs, the violence, the corruption of officials, the crime to support habits -- are all direct results of drug interdiction, just as they were during Prohibition in the 1920s. Ironic, isn't it, that we never seem to learn. Raymond K. Clark Littleton - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom