To the Editor:

Robert Mazur (“How to Halt the Terrorist Money Train,” Op-Ed, Jan. 3) prescribes harsher prosecution of money-laundering bankers as the cure for the plague of the international drug trade.

It is not only access to laundering that allows and encourages drug cartels to operate, but also the prohibition of select narcotics that offers the world’s most ruthlessly violent criminals the opportunity to conduct their lucrative business.

The United States consumes more illegal drugs than any other country, allowing some countries south of our border to be dominated by groups that can meet our consumer demands. It is time for these countries to regulate the drug market, ideally through legalization.

The same must be done in the United States. Bankers who help supply the American market escape prison while hundreds of thousands of street-level dealers and recreational users are incarcerated. This must stop.