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"LOCKSTEP, BLIND POLITICIANS"

Thank you for publishing A.  Robert Kaufman's outstanding letter, "Lockstep Blind Politicians" ( 4-3-02 ).  When Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine and sold for 5 cents a bottle, "drug-related" crime didn't exist.  Neither did drug dealers, as we know them today, nor drug lords or drug cartels.

When pure pharmaceutical grade Bayer heroin was legally sold in local pharmacies for about the same price as Bayer aspirin, deaths from recreational drugs were very rare.  That's because the drugs were of known quality, potency and purity.

Today recreational drugs are of unknown quality, unknown potency and unknown purity--not unlike the "bathtub gin" of our grandfathers' era.  During that era, known as alcohol prohibition, thousands died and thousands went blind from drinking illegal, home-made alcohol.

When alcohol prohibition ended in 1933, the U.S.  murder rate declined for 10 consecutive years.

Have we learned any lessons from this? Not yet.

Kirk Muse

Mr.  Muse writes from Mesa, AZ.