Letter of the Day: President Nixon's victims?

Nixon's victims?

EDITOR: The war on drugs is not and never was a failure - in light of its original purpose. Those who say it is a failure don't understand that purpose. The war on drugs was declared by President Richard Nixon when he noticed that many of the young people demonstrating against him smoked pot and that inner-city blacks were unlikely to vote for him in light of his Southern strategy of embracing those opposed to extending civil rights to blacks. The original purpose of the war on drugs was to discomfort Nixon's enemies and empower and enrich his friends. From that perspective, it has worked very well indeed.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was collateral damage in the war on drugs. He and many thousands of others died because of consuming drugs of unknown potency and unknown purity - unknown because of the war on drugs.

Millions of lives have been damaged or destroyed because of the war, mostly those whom Nixon would have considered his enemies. Money and power have been given to his friends. It is long past time we as a society stop doing Nixon's dirty work.

HANK ZUCKER

Petaluma