Source: Waco Tribune-Herald Contact: Pubdate: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 DEADLY FLAWS Re: Cox News Service, Mary Alice Davis, Dec. '97, "Global marketing of heroin is claiming our teen-agers," in 1997 a total of 16 youths from Plano lost their lives to heroin overdose. Experts report the children were under the misguided notion that snorting or smoking heroin was inherently safer than IV injection. One must ask: How is it that the most aggressive anti-drug policy in the history of the world failed to communicate the lethal potential of all opiates -- regardless of the method of ingestion? Answer: This policy has many deadly flaws. And the most deadly flaw lies with policy-makers who refuse to share the theater with qualified personnel. Rational alternatives to our mortally wounded war on drugs continue to be shunned. Who seeks alternatives? Associations of trained professionals and private citizens who have taken the time to discover the success of alternatives such as needle exchange programs and decriminalizing marijuana for adults. Ask policy-makers to pursue alternatives under a model of harm reduction and tolerance. We can treat addiction, we can even live with it, but who is profiting from this barrage of open caskets, private prisons and hollow promises? John F. Wilson Waco