It has been said with regard to cancer that there is no profit in a cure. The same principle applies here: There is no profit in an end to the drug war. The alternative to prohibition -- legalization -- will not produce the profits that the drug war does for its proponents.

The drug war and its proponents do not and have never listed victory as an objective.

Leaders' boasts of "Drug free by the year 2005" or "2007" etc. are laughable. The same was boasted by past presidents and politicians about 1980, 1985 and 1990 etc. ad nauseum. The true (and hidden) objective is that it is imperative that the drug war never be won. In that way it perpetuates itself and all the revenue it produces.

Maybe the politicians are required to adhere to the party line of prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison industrial complex, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the politicians themselves et al can't live without the budget justification, not to mention the invisible profits, bribery, corruption and forfeiture benefits that prohibition affords them.

The drug war also promotes, justifies and perpetuates racist enforcement policies and is diminishing many freedoms and liberties that are supposed to be guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Prohibition can never succeed. Our law enforcement institutions and economies are now addicted -- financially -- to the war on drugs. Wake up world -- this is a fiscal addiction.

MYRON VON HOLLINGSWORTH
Fort Worth, Texas

The recent court order by Judge Albert Matthews to bar Joe "Hemp" Kidwell his First Amendment rights is typical of the totalitarian and illegal nature of marijuana prohibition. Those like Matthews show the inhumanity of our current legal imbroglio with regard to drugs, legal and illicit. How can a judge ban someone from talking about medicine? Who puts people like Matthews in charge?

MARCY STEPHANS
Santa Monica