METH IS A KILLER

Editor: In response to the letters published on Feb. 14 about "legalizing
meth," I just have to ask: Have any of the letter writers who think that
legalizing meth is necessary ever known someone who has used meth?

Do they know how hard it is to watch someone you love being killed by that
crap? I have known a few people who were caught up in that world, and the
one thing that they had in common was the knowledge that they are killing
themselves, and they don't know how to stop.

They go into a detox centre and feel like no one there truly understands
them, so they leave and go back to what they know and that's the drug
dealers or their friends who are also in the same situation.

Or how about those people who have successfully stopped using the stuff;
those who are constantly fighting the urge to go back to it. How is
legalizing it going to help any of them? It will just make it easier to
get, or easier to go back to.

Now they may say that "our current justice system isn't working" and you're
right, the sentences handed down are too light. Everyone knows that getting
caught once means little. It's only your first offence and you pretty much
just get a slap on the wrist.

How about making the punishment harsher? Why not treat a drug dealer like a
mass murderer (since basically they are) and make it mandatory that they
spend 20 years in prison. For those who are in possession of any narcotics,
why not give them a mandatory ban from whichever city they were caught in?

That way, it would make it more difficult for those addicts to get back to
their dealer and/or to the people they would regularly associate with in
that city. The harder it is to get, the less likely someone is to use it.

Oh, and I almost forgot. "Regulation" works so well with both cigarettes
and alcohol that it will work for narcotics also, right?

Sorry, but how about the 13-year-old I saw the other day smoking, or the 16
or 17-year-old who thinks that they are invincible and drive drunk, killing
someone on their way home. I guess regulation is working great in those
situations.

How about the old guy who likes to make his own moonshine? Oh yeah, laws
and regulation really work, don't they.

Jaime Skilling,

Langley