PROHIBITION FAILS

J. NEWCOMBE'S drug solution (Letters, 21/7) has been tried in the US.
The result has been that the former "land of the free" now has more
prisoners than any country in history. Thanks to our war on drugs, our
policy of drug prohibition has proved to be just as counter-productive
as alcohol prohibition. Illegal drug buyers are getting drugs of unknown
quality, unknown potency and unknown purity. This is not unlike the
bathtub gin our grandfathers bought that resulted in needless deaths.
Regrettably, our counter-productive policy of drug prohibition is
spreading to the rest of the world.

Drug prohibition, like any prohibition, has not worked and cannot work,
except to ensure full employment for those fighting it.

Kirk Muse, Vancouver, Canada.