DRUG PROHIBITION ONLY CREATES BLACK MARKETS

Dear Editor - Re: 'The call of crack is so strong: panellist' (Guelph
Mercury, Feb. 19).

"I wish it could be as simple as Kyoto," one person said at a panel
discussion on drug addiction last weekend.

It's a lot simpler than Kyoto if you stop jerking your knees and use
your brain instead.

The cost of crack cocaine is a couple of pennies per dose. Another
penny would assure its purity and accurate dosing.

Armies all over the world -- international and national military
forces as well as police and paramilitary groups of all kinds -- are
trying to stop people who'll help anyone maintain such a habit, but
not many among them know -- and of those, there are quite a few who
don't care anyway -- that prohibition of things people want only
really does one thing well: creates incredibly profitable black markets.

Most people supplying the illicit drug market insist on -- and they
often arm themselves sufficiently to ensure -- huge compensation for
risking their liberty, property and lives to earn their living from
that market.

It doesn't have to be that way, though. Legalize and regulate that
market, charge prices based only on supply, demand and cost of
production, and the black market won't be interested anymore.

Think: why bother offering crack for $1.25 per gram in Guelph when
better margins are possible so much faster selling plutonium for $2
million a gram in Pyongyang?

Michael Muirhead,

Queen Charlotte, B.C.