MAIL

To the Editors of The Crimson:

President Bush's recent call for an escalation in the War on Drugs demands serious debate among the American public on how best to deal with this devastating social problem. While Seth Gitell is right to support greater Harvard participation in this debate ("Joining the War on Drugs," September 26), most of his concrete suggestions are worse than useless, offering more of the same flawed drug policies the nation has pursued unsuccessfully for decades.

As Gitell points out, the most tragic consequence of the drug trade is the toll it takes on innocent victims like Tiffany Moore, killed in crossfire during a shootout between rival drug gangs. More generally, the violence which accompanies drug trafficking victimizes entire neighborhoods, particularly in the African-American community, as the constant danger of crime drives private businesses to the suburbs and further isolates minorities in joblessness and poverty.

But it's not true, as Gitell claims, that "each dollar spent on a gram of illegal cocaine is a dollar that gets funneled to people like those who killed young Tiffany Moore. "Drugs didn't kill Tiffany; drug laws did. Crack dealers, like the rest of us, don't particularly want to get killed--or kill anyone else--while trying to make a buck, but since drug deals can't be legally enforced like other commercial contracts, they need firepower to back them up. The government's irrational prohibitionist policies encourage a handful of teenaged criminals to terrorize minority neighborhoods in the inner cities, while ironically perpetuating the stereotype of all African-American men as potential muggers and murderers.

What does this have to do with the average Harvard undergraduate? Practically nothing--and that's the problem with Gitell's prescriptions. Gitell compares the University's potential role in the War on Drugs with its cooperation in World War Two, but a better analogy might be Vietnam, another conflict directed by Harvard's "best and brightest." This is another war America can't win, but at least this time Harvard's faculty are a little more cautious about the prospects for victory.

Gitell cites the work of two Kennedy school experts on drug policy, A.R. Kleiman and Mark Moore, but his article might have been more constructive if he'd showed some signs of familiarity with these men's work, which includes the recommendation that marijuana enforcement be reduced, not expanded. This contrasts sharply with the President's recent proposal that federal funds be withheld from universities which fail to implement "effective" anti-drug policies. By and large, of course, it's not crack that college students are smoking.

The President's plan to crack down on such "casual" drug users, like Gitell's call for more aggresive University Police action against drugs, amounts to a massive assault on the privacy of students, for the sake of controlling a drug which generates little specific gang violence and is, according to some scientific evidence, safer than alcohol. Harvard needs to be a critic and conscientious objector, not an enthusiastic recruit. John Rigsby '90