George J. Paetow`s Dec. 27 letter calling for a mandatory death penalty for sellers of illegal drugs displays poor logic. In nations like China or Iran that regularly execute drug sellers, the presence of sellers to execute shows that even the death penalty does not halt trafficking.
A decade of increasingly brutal drug crime penalties has left America with the world`s highest percentage of the population in prison, record numbers of hard-core addicts, record violent crime driven by obscene profits in the drug trade and left many impoverished due to spending and taxation to support the policy. It has cost the lives of innocent citizens killed in drug- related gang wars and caused the deaths of police officers called upon to enforce bad laws.
Problems associated with the illegal alcohol trade ended only with the repeal of Prohibition. Problems associated with the illegal drug trade will end only with legalization.
