LEGALIZING METH WILL SOLVE PROBLEMS

Editor: In response to your editorial (The Times, Feb. 11), this is
an open letter to Solicitor General John Les.

Making ingredients illegal won't make crystal meth go away. It will
only become more toxic, and lead to more violence. There are good
reasons to legalize, then regulate and even tax crystal meth.
Foolishly, our present government policy of drug prohibition is
injecting price increases and violence into the black market, and
then abdicating the right to decide the following:

- - Who is going to supply the drugs to the community?

- - What kind of drugs are going to be supplied?

- - How much are drugs going to cost?

- - How potent and toxic are those drugs going to be?

- - How are they going to be produced?

- - What age levels are they going to be sold to?

- - Where are they going to be sold?

Making it more illegal will only make it more toxic and violent. I
agree that crystal meth is poison. The question is how to control it
without eroding our freedoms, and making the problems worse.

The violence associated with the dealing of the drug comes not from
the drug, but from the illegality of its sale.

This country is long overdue in recognizing that the "war on drugs"
is a "war on ourselves." We have squandered billions of dollars and
too many of our children's lives, addressing a medical and societal
problem by using the criminal law.

If you really want to protect your child, look at the government
policy called drug prohibition and its creation, the black market.
Regulation is still enforcement -- it is just enforcement light.

The question is not will it harm the individual, but will letting the
black market make the decisions of distribution and purity help
reduce the negative effects to society and the individual?

Regulation does not mean unfettered access, but restricted access to
our children. Just because a drug is toxic is no reason to ban it.
We don't ban gasoline or glue. These are both abused, addictive and
do brain damage.

Making a drug illegal always increases the price, increases the
toxicity and increases the violence. It does not eliminate it from
the marketplace. A domestic ban on the ingredents will only force us
to import them at a higher price. We can export production and the
pollution from production, but our demand will create an imported supply.

It is the duty of leadership to explain to the public the truths
about the true cost of choosing more drug prohibition.

The solution I suggest is understanding that drug prohibition
creates social pollution.

Ending drug prohibition means ending the propaganda. That means equal
podium time for the opposition. This single action will play a
decisive role and have an historic impact on the present and future
of world peace, the environment and social justice.

Tim Felger,

Abbotsford