Daily News from New York, New York • 498

This 'junk' letter has something to say i THE mailbag continues heavy since I wrote that circumstances argue the legalization of drugs combined with massive public education. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York entered my last column into the Congressional Record, introducing it with a so high that honest people go into the business, who would never commit a crime; they take the place of those who get caught say it takes $100,000 to build one cell. say it takes $40,000 to house one inmate (for one year). If you legalize all the drugs, the prisons would be almost empty, crime would be reduced by 75.

Marijuana would be sold and taxed by the government, it would produce millions of dollars, to be used constructively. "As you know all this, supply and demand would kill the drug trade." One needn't accept all the asseverations of the anonymous prisoner. But the ring of truth is there. The largest psychological obstacle remains the public notion that to legalize drugs is to pronounce benediction on them. This isn't an entirely benighted idea.

population is black or Hispanic. 75 of the entire population in New York prisons, and probably the whole country, are in because of drugs or drug-related (crimes). The junkie must steal every day of the week, in order to keep up his or her habit, they must steal $1,000 a day or more, in order to get $100 or $150. Every junkie helps young people to start using junk, or pills, or mary-jane, or something to get them started, and the business escalates with new customers every day. Marijuana is no different than alcohol.

Excessive use will drive you crazy or kill you. is not addictive; rich man's toy. All pills are dangerous. Heroin is a killer and addictive. The price and profit of dope is About a generation ago.

Inland Revenue collectors in London decided the time had come to tax the whores, and so estimates were made of their income, and tax bills were sent out These included forms, and under "profession," the disconsolate girls would put down such things as "hostess" or "companion" or "nurse." One girl wrote down carefully, "prostitute." A few weeks later, her check was returned. His Majesty's government was not going to participate in the wages of sin. SOMETHING OF THAT attitude carries over into the notion of a tax on drug But the paradox is as easily penetrated as the proposition that because we permit the publication of Hustler magazine, we approve of reading that vile Journal which, by the way, we unblushingly tax. We are overdue for hard thought on this pained and divisive subject William F. Buckley Jr.

Salsa Serrano: The beat goes on fADISON 3 Square Garden few paragraphs about the extent which he opposes drugs and then passed along the package with a covering letter urging me to rethink my conclusion in the matter. He writes: "My Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control has held many hearings on the subject of drug abuse and ways to control it I assure, you, our findings clearly show that legalization is not the solution you seek But neither in his letter nor in his speech did Mr. Rangel tell us wh.it his committee has accomplished. I dont know when the first of Mr. Rangel's meetings was held, but I wager wita confidence that between then and now.

a) drug consumption has increased, b) drug-related crime has Increased, and c) the price of drugs has corae down. When the price of illegal drugs comes down, the market is telling you something: Competition Is setting the price. When there is a reduction in the price of street drugs, this means that our massive efforts to keep drugs out of the country are failing. When, a few years ago, we had all that telegenic chemical destruction of the marijuana crop in Mexico, the marijuana crop in Colombia promptly increased. It's like and price controls.

Not all my correspondents are In Congress. One is in Sing Sing, and he writes with declarative vigor. I quote: "You are 100 correct and the people who wrote to. you saying that you are wrong about legalizing drugs have no conception of what is going on in this country because of drugs. "...85 of the New York prison was filled to capacity, and practically everyone was clapping their hands and stamping their feet Some were standing on the seats, and others were dancing in the aisles.

There was a Salsa Festival at the Garden Miguel Perez It illustrated how young Latinos are so removed from the political process that they would knock their community's only hope for real empowerment in 1985. I couldn't believe they were refusing to give this man five minutes of their salsa time. It showed that many of them take their music more seriously than their neighborhood. "I knew I was taking a big chance in going there," Serrano said yesterday. "I knew people would be having good time and didn't want to hear it When they started booing, believe me, the thought went through my mind of walking off stage, out of respect for them." But Serrano managed to turn the whole thing around.

He didn't speak about himself, but about the importance of minority empowerment "I told them that there is a struggle in the Bronx for recognition, for justice and for representation. And the minute that I began to mention that our government is not represented by us, that we have talent we have knowledge, we have things that we can contribute, it to began to turn around immediately." At the end of his short speech, they were cheering. That's the way Serrano has been turning people around in the Bronx, especially the minorities, which in the Bronx are the majority. People who have been disfranchised are now beginning to take an interest because, through Serrano, they believe that some of their dreams will come true. There is a sense of optimism among the minorities in the Bronx because a real coalition, the one that failed to materialize on a citywide level, is coming together behind Serrano's challenge of Stanley Simon and the Bronx political machine.

After the failure to come up with a qualified and unifying minority candidate for mayor, this coalition has come together "with the understanding that the borough presidencies may indeed be what is attainable for our community," Serrano said. Despite the black-Hispanic division caused by the race for mayor, Serrano has managed to remain above water, receiving the support except for the few puppets who belong to Simon's machine of most of the city's black and Hispanic leaders, the labor unions and most of the city's newspapers. And in the barrios, even the ones outside the Bronx, Latinos are proud to see a talented, articulate, caring and experienced legislator who happens to be Puerto Rican about to make a mark in New York City's history. on Saturday night, and the beat of Latin music had 20,000 people in a state of ecstasy. But then the flow of the music was disrupted when Assemblyman Jose Serrano, a candidate for Bronx borough president was allowed to make a short speech.

As he started to explain that Latinos had a chance to make a political impact in the Bronx, many began booing him. Some shouted that they paid to hear salsa and not speeches. Here's the Marquis; de Sade's next door SENSE THAT there's an excite I TOOK a walk over to tawdry Broadway and 45th St to view the new Marriott Marquis Hotel, a 50-story extravaganza that cost $450 million to put up. It opened this week to a convention of nurses. Single rooms go for $200 a night The Marriott Marquis is ment on the part of the Hispanic community, and the black com munity, too.

about my candidacy," he Bill Reel supposed to spark a renaissance in sleazy Times Square. The hulking hotel, grey and boxlike, reminded this critic of the municipal parking garage on the corner of Atlantic Ave. and Court St in Brooklyn. outside a store that advertised aphrodisiacs, virility pills and paper for rolling marijuana cigarets. The trio appeared to be the victims of chemical substances of a lethal kind.

The hooker, squinting and working very, very slowly, used scissors to snip hairs off a mole on her flabby chest One of the pimps drank out of a can in a paper bag. His blotchy face was grotesquely bloated. He stared evilly at a passerby. Two teenage girls bargained with a man outside an Eighth Ave. porno house, but he broke off negotiations.

The girls walked away in a snit "We gots bi'ness to take care of!" one of them spat over her shoulder. OH, OF COURSE, I'm only giving you part of the picture. Some fine restaurants and several elegant theaters sit on 45th and 46th Sts. between Broadway and Eighth Ave. The scene isn't simply a sewer; there's swank around, too.

Glitz and garbage get along well in New York. Maybe the Marriott Marquis will uplift the whole neighborhood eventually. The degenerates might move. Some have relocated already. A hustler at 46th and Broadway handed out leaflets advertising AN ADULT ENTERTAINMENT BAR GRAND OPENING GALA PARTY, SEE THE THINGS THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF, 25 NUDE DANCERS, PORN STARS, GIFTS, FAVORS, FREE KISSES.

The address of this lewd saloon was over by get this Second Ave. The bottom on the leaflet proclaimed proudly: ON THE SAFE EAST SIDE! settled for a stroll around the block. As I ambled up Broadway to seedy 46th, walked west to ugly Eighth passed beneath porno movie marquees down to 45th and returned to Broadway, I wondered what would possess a tourist to stay in such a noxious neighborhood. Don't misunderstand: I hope the Marriott Marquis has its No Vacancy sign up every night Busy hotels mean jobs for New Yorkers. But I can't fathom the alleged mind of anyone who would pay $200 a night to be near Times Square.

A sadist wouldn't take a masochist to such an area. A couple of hundred feet from the hotel, blinking lights above a Broadway door beckoned thrill-seekers to a TOPLESS FRENCH REVIEW, CONTINUOUS LIVE BURLESQUE. GIRLS WANTED. NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY. Two husky young guys wearing gold chains and tattoos swaggered into the dark den.

They might have been visiting for business or pleasure, or both. They looked like aspiring wise-guys on an errand for a downtown don. Their type infests Times Square. Around the corner on 46th downwind from a strong stench of urine, a male burlesque house featured 7 BOYS FIVE TIMES A DAY, SPECIAL MARATHON SHOWS. A handsome, curly-haired young man, wearing jeans and a sleeveless shirt, a duffel bag over his shoulder, came bouncing out of the place and loped toward Broadway.

His gig was done for the day, apparently. Across 46th St. by Eighth a hooker and a "pair guys who looked like pimps sat in a daze on the sidewalk Bigger, of course, but basically the same. On the subject of architecture, I know what I like, and I know what looks like a garage. Anyway, $200 for a hotel room is beyond my budget so I needn't fret a a.

si CO said. Because, whether at a salsa concert or a black church, he is making people see that Simon has been "a silent voice on the Board of Estimate." "When was the last time, before this campaign started, that you heard Stanley Simon making some kind of a public statement on any issue in this city?" Serrano asks. "You hear the others, but you don't hear Simon, and yet he represented the county which should be a platform for you to make all the arguments pro poor people, pro minorities, pro working class, against devastation and bad housing and crime." Serrano talks about bringing in new businesses and making sure that they hire a majority of Bronx people, about starting a massive literacy program to prepare adults for better jobs, about starting a new borough education de-' partment to deal with the specific needs of Bronx children. "There's nothing more important than education to get people out of poverty," he says. That includes the political education he is giving the minorities even when they thmk salsa is more important about having my refined aesthetic sensibilities offended by an overnight stay at the Marriott Marquis.

Mr. Marriott, or Mr. Marquis, or whoever, wouldn't give a damn what I think, by the way. Workmen are still putting finishing touches on the hotel, the grand opening won't happen until next month, but most of the rooms already have been booked through December. Rooms have Dcen reserved for 1.2 million nights through 1995.

You had to be a nurse at the convention to get past heavy security into the' lobhv. and I wasn't wearing whites, so I (0.