MYOPIC THINKING

To the editor:

Regarding the Aug. 13 commentary, "Demon weed from Canada?": Does anyone
remember Prohibition? By the time the government came to its senses, the
damage had been done. Organized crime, prior to then a minor irritant, used
its earnings from illegal alcohol sales to expand into areas of commerce
that would not have been possible earlier.

Now we have the war on drugs, complete with "Vietnam: The Sequel" going on
in Colombia. There is a simple equation to describe this unwinnable spiral:
The more Draconian the penalties are for a given substance, the more
enforcing them will cost.

The increase in profit made possible by these penalties fuels a large
portion of the drug-related violence with which we are inundated. Is it any
surprise that once the government taxed, regulated and enforced purity
standards on alcohol, and imposed severe penalties for its improper use, the
rumrunner violence stopped? It follows that the only way we are going to
quash the "narcotraficante" violence is to remove the potential profit from
the substances. It is time to really "save our children" and stop the
madness. Canada is on the right track.

Timothy G. L'innomme, Las Vegas