Pubdate: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 Source: Asheville Citizen-Times (NC) Copyright: 2004 Asheville Citizen-Times Contact: http://www.citizen-times.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/863 Author: Ben A. Robinson Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n809/a01.html DRUG ERADICATION PROGRAM ANOTHER RIPOFF OF TAXPAYERS The article, "Dragging drugs out of city won't come cheap," (AC-T, June 2), illustrates the unfair rape of American taxpayers. The article states it will cost some combinations of governments and "funding options," (code for whose pockets your City Council can rob) $600,000 to handle eradicating drugs from Asheville's 10 public housing developments. Truly, people no longer can see the trees for the forests in our land. (A reversal of the usual terms, isn't it?) Do not hold your breath that that amount of money will make even a down payment. Forests, because your city leaders can see the people in the aggregate and the totality of the situation, but cannot perceive of the individuals, 3,000 of them, you say, who comprise the problem. Councilperson Holly Jones refers to the problem as "the city's," with not an expressed thought that there should be, heaven forbid, any personal responsibility and accountability expended by the individuals for their own plight. She must see them all as helpless. Asheville in this matter is surely no different from hundreds of other communities across our nation who are enslaved by 40 years of enabling liberalism and our nonjudgmental, permissive society in granting billions of dollars for every conceived kind of "crock." Ben A. Robinson, Lake Junaluska - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake