Mike Hernandez

I don’t know what is worse, Councilman Mike Hernandez’s arrest for cocaine possession or Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg’s comment, “It’s time for American society to grow up and see these kinds of substance abuse issues as the illnesses they are and not as personal shortcomings” (Aug. 23). Where did character go?

ALLYN ANDERSON

Los Angeles

So Goldberg thinks cocaine addiction is an illness. Can someone please explain to me how voluntarily ingesting an illegal substance can be considered an illness? This is simply excuse-making by someone who should know better.

RAYMOND I. DYNE

Chatsworth

Hernandez is another casualty of the War on Drugs. Like millions of others before him, he was not killed but gravely injured by the barrage of weapons used to fight the war. The soldiers in this case were IMPACT, an acronym for the Los Angeles Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Task Force. I do not not know how many soldiers took part in this war skirmish, but it probably cost taxpayers thousands of dollars before several self-inflicted victims of the war, including Hernandez, were captured.

According to The Times, the plan to capture Hernandez began at least two months ago. The tipster, the new police chief and his task force all knew the devastation that Hernandez was causing himself, let alone those who depend on him such as his family and community. Yet, no one came to the rescue.

Would it not have been wiser to have had a social worker, a health worker or a family member approach him and offer him help. Why wait and watch while a good man crumbles and self-destructs and then charge him with a crime, all for the sake of winning an unwinnable war?

GILBERT VARELA

Los Angeles

Conviction for a crime should be disqualifying for public office, even the City Council.

NOLAN W. CRAMER

Surfside, Calif.

If Councilman Hernandez gets 50% of the compassion and support he has given the poor and the disadvantaged, he’ll come out of this 100% better off.

ROBERT KNOWLES

Los Angeles