Letter: Let government distribute drugs

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 1999 | 9:31 a.m.

We have to pay men and women to investigate criminal complaints. This requires people to find, arrest, hold in jails, investigate claims, transport from jails to courts, try, find guilty, and ultimately imprison those found guilty of dope use.

Each action requires men and women, equipment, jails, court houses, transportation and ultimately prisons. The really final indignity is most expensive. Everything in use has to be insured. That alone is an exorbitant expense. Four years ago, President Clinton was made aware of this gigantic expense but he deemed it necessary.

How do you decriminalize drugs? It is quite simple. The government becomes the sole source of drugs. Anyone desirous of drugs get it free. The "forbidden fruit" is always the most desired. If it isn't forbidden, what is the attraction?

Sure, we're going to lose a "Johnny" or "Suzy" along the line, but we are losing far more now. Wasted lives are not the fault of the nonusers. We have now made an industry of dope. The cost is far beyond the billion mark. The press, the clergy and the ridiculous right are the dope "fearmeisters."

Are we so weak we now have to crawl all over Bush for unproven indiscretions?

HUGH S. JENINGS