To the Editor:

The news is full of gruesome stories of atrocities by warring drug cartels, especially in Mexico.  This violent crime wave stems from the huge profits in the burgeoning, illegal drug trade, fed largely by the appetite of drug users in the U.S.

It is reminiscent of the violent days of bootlegging and crime for which Chicago gangsters were notorious during Prohibition. This violence was solved when alcohol was legalized, and the state now profits instead from the taxing of alcohol, along with tobacco.