I agree with the sentiments expressed in James Matson's letter to the editor in which he wrote, "we need to make sex and drugs safe and legal, or continue our downhill spiral to perpetuate doctrines that are proven failures." What Mr. Matson refers to is the inability of advocates for Prohibition-like policies and "abstinence-only" education to realize that their initiatives have done nothing to solve the problems they were purported to solve, which is not surprising given the Puritanical--or, to use Cass from Butler's excellent wording, Neanderthal--premises that underlie these efforts. "Abstinence-only" approaches, which are funded by tax dollars, have been thoroughly discredited but unfortunately taxpayers have no recourse but to demand the end of this program. The same analysis also reveals how counterproductive and deleterious the "War on Drugs" has been to taxpayers and law enforcement personnel and what a boon it is to organized crime. A new approach is urgently needed.

I also want to thank Mr. Matson for his support of my efforts and I hope that Cass, who understandably believes that people are not upon to reason on these topics and whose position I am sympathetic to, isn't proven right.