Drug Roadblocks

* Re “U.S. Justices Halt Drug Roadblocks,” Nov. 29: In its finding that roadblocks used for catching people with illicit drugs violate the 4th Amendment, the Supreme Court perhaps not only enunciated the sanctity of the right of privacy but may have also inched our nation a bit away from the sorely misguided war on drugs. The court took away one arbitrary tactic of law enforcement that made Indianapolis (and other places using it) more like Cold War Berlin than a city in a free democracy.

Americans must realize that some people will choose to become intoxicated with drugs other than alcohol, and as long as there is this demand someone will supply the substances. Unless drug users present harm to others, they should be treated just as one whose drug of choice is alcohol. Education, treatment for the afflicted who choose it and strict regulation are the only means a society can have of “controlling” drug use. Until there is this realization, the only thing standing between our children and drugs are people who are willing to risk imprisonment and in many cases willing to kill or risk being killed in order to reap the huge profits drug prohibition makes possible. Would you hire such a person to baby-sit your child?

WILLIAM W. READ

Pasadena