The Case for Legalizing Drugs

``Drugs do not threaten the American way of life; they are part of it,'' avers historian Miller ( Truman ) as he makes a compelling case for declaring all drugs legal. The author wants the manufacture, distribution, sale, purchase, possession and use of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, marijuana and LSD legalized, with government price controls enforced to keep the costs low, if need be. The goal of a drug-free America, he argues, is an impossible one; thus, the anti-drug war is an anti-people war especially punishing to the nation's youth and to African-Americans. Further, Miller claims, the battle harms American democracy by, in effect, condemning users as subhuman outcasts (he even draws analogies here with the anti-Jewish rampage of the Nazis in the 1930s). Turning conventional attitudes upside down, Miller's book offers rich food for thought--and for argument. (Mar.)