Editor -- Diana Conti's Open Forum piece, ``Drug War Isn't on Target,'' (June 8) was itself off target. Lumping alcoholic beverages (legal to produce, but illegal to consume for underage youth) with illegal drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamines and heroin, serves to obfuscate the issue and trivialize the importance of the anti-drug message.

Underage consumption of alcohol is certainly a problem, but Ms. Conti's approach does little to address it. Blindly linking ``alcohol and other drugs'' sends the wrong message to underage abusers in a society that has been down the path of prohibition only to find the ``cure'' far worse than the problem.

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