Editor's note: This letter is in response to the recent feature, U.S. Mayors Declare Drug War a Failure, and a letter from a reader, U.S. Mayors Do Not Understand Addiction. 

[In his letter,] Roger D. Morgan champions urine testing and states: "Most Mayors do not understand the root causes of the problem of addiction, they just bear the burden from our collective failure to protect young people."

Morgan states: "Drugs kill an estimated 2,800 Americans weekly (3,000 a month just from overdose) and cost the nation over $200 billion per annum." 

If he is talking about the deaths from alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs he has understated the fact; if he is talking about recreational drugs such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, he has grossly overstated the number. Tobacco kills more than 7,000 per week, alcohol more than 2,000 per week and prescription drugs more than 2,000. The number of overdose deaths from "hard" drugs each year, despite the fact they are made by untrained chemists and cut with everything from baby powder to rat poison, is less than 100 per week. 

Certainly we need to monitor our children's behavior and suspicious parents always have the option to test their children's urine either at a doctors office or by way of the tests available at the local drug store. Big Brother has had his day in this drug war and failed miserably. This drug war has lasted more than 92 years yet drugs are cheaper, purer and more freely available to our children than ever before. Isn't it time to truthfully educate our children and to tax and regulate the distribution of these recreational drugs to adults, and thus deny our children the easy access that the black market affords? 

Examining the urine of the young is a job for the alpha male in a wolf pack, not for civilized human beings.

Dean Becker
Houston, TX
Member, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)