By Jack A. Cole Retired Police Lieutenant

Many thanks for Shahien Nasiripour's thoughtful article, "Students could face up to 15 years in jail" ( Saturday ), alerting readers that teens caught selling small amounts of drugs in their high schools will be prosecuted as adults.

This policy will accomplish nothing other than ruining the lives of 16 of our children and destroying their families. Treating children as adults will not lower the incidence of death, disease, crime or addiction.

For 35 years, we have fought the war on drugs with these policies, and all that has changed is drugs are cheaper, more potent and far easier to get than they were in the 1970s, when nearly a thousand young people went to jail as a direct result of my work as an undercover narcotics agent.

I can't say how many of those children would have gone on to become valuable citizens had I not intervened, but I'm sure the number would be huge.

Think of all the folks you know who used an illegal drug as a youngster, then put the drugs behind them and went on to live productive lives. Many are now members of our government.

You can get over an addiction, but you will never get over a conviction.

Jack A. Cole, New Jersey State Police Lieutenant ( retired )

Medford, Mass.