Pubdate: Thu, 28 Dec 2000
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 2000 The Baltimore Sun, a Times Mirror Newspaper.
Contact:  501 N. Calvert Street P.0. Box 1377 Baltimore, MD 21278
Fax: (410) 315-8912
Website: http://www.sunspot.net/
Forum: http://www.sunspot.net/cgi-bin/ultbb/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro
Author: Robin Ficker Boyds

STATE'S DO-NOTHING SENATORS LEAVE DRUG PLAGUE UNCHECKED

I've noted with interest The Sun's series of editorials dealing with the 
long-term neglect by Maryland elected officials of probation violations and 
lax sentences in Baltimore City ("Violent crime pays in city of soft 
sentences," editorial, Dec. 18). The Sun knows, as I do as a lawyer for 27 
years, that the underlying cause of these problems is the distribution and 
use of mind-altering illegal drugs in Baltimore. Maryland's two U.S. 
senators, Paul S. Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski, were elected to their 
posts in 1976 and 1986, respectively. They both live in Baltimore, where 
they have been surrounded on a daily basis by this drug problem. What 
successful initiatives has either ever launched to interdict the flow of 
drugs into the city?

Using the editorial hammer, while welcome, seems a trifle disingenuous as 
The Sun has endorsed these do-nothing-on-drugs senators without interruption.

Robin Ficker Boyds
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