LEGALIZE IT!

Major kudos to John Sugg for his outstanding column (Metropolis,
"Kathryn Johnston's real killer," Feb. 15). Imagine if we had no
"drug-related crime." Imagine if our overall crime rate was a small
fraction of our current crime rate.

We once had such a situation here in the United States. Prior to the
passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, the term "drug-related
crime" didn't exist. And drug lords, drug cartels or even drug
dealers as we know them today didn't exist either.

Back then, all types of recreational drugs were legally sold to
anybody with no questions asked, for pennies per dose in grocery
stores and pharmacies. Did we have a lot more drug addicts then
compared with now? No. We had about the same percentage of our
population addicted to drugs, according to U.S. federal Judge John L.
Kane of Colorado.

Since the vast majority of all of our violent crime and property
crime is caused by our drug-prohibition policies, the common-sense
solution is to relegalize all of our now-illegal drugs. Then the
drugs can be sold in legal, regulated and licensed business
establishments. Then drug dealers as we know them today will
disappear for economic reasons. Then our so-called "drug-related
crime" will be in our past -- not our future. This would eliminate
the lure of the "forbidden fruit" that makes drugs so attractive to children.

- -- Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.