Sent: Thursday, July 23, 1998 2:00 PM
To:  Smashing Freedom
Author: Bruce Rideout, Madison, WI
Editor's Note: This is a letter sent to the "Orlando Sentinel"

SMASHING FREEDOM

I read your article with sadness.

What was once the parents responsibility of teaching children about
life is now handled by 30 second sound bite messages which have no
basis in fact. For over 30 years the very argument you, and the
federal government, make said if we could just reach them the way
Pepsi and Nike do, we could turn this drug problem around.

If we just spend a few more billion taxpayer dollars.

If we build a few more prisons, incarcerate a few million more drug
users.Well, you and they did. It is now worse than it has ever been. 
Your 12 year old son is now, under prohibition, able to get virtually
any drug he chooses (or is offered) without any proof of age or
guarantee of quality or safety.

Can you not see that the very system you defend is the reason your son
will always be at risk of drug use, addiction, overdose, or violent
death from a drug turf war? Can't you see that instead of sending
expensive helicopters to Columbia that are used on their own people we
could be providing better education opportunities for your son (I have
one myself). We are sending millions of dollars to a group in
Afghanistan, the Talibans, for the purpose of destroying the poppy
crops there.

This fundamental religious group routinely brutalizes it's own people,
especially women.

Will you be explaining this to your son as you explain the wonderful
benefits of drug prohibition? Or how our government routinely stands
next to brutal governments that make Saddaam Hussein look gentle?

I can only feel sorry for the world your, and my, son is left with
when the carnage of this repressive system piles up. It will be on
your hands.

Bruce Rideout
509 Rethke Ave.
Madison, WI  53714

- ---
Checked-by: "Rich O'Grady"