WAR AGAINST DRUGS IS DOING NOTHING, EXCEPT WASTING TAXPAYERS' MONEY

Editor:

Re: RCMP pulls its officers from Delta police's drug section, March 7

Instead of wasting the taxpayers' money, Mayor Lois Jackson ought to do
the right thing and budget zero dollars for the drug section. The RCMP
offer the best reason why: They have been fighting drugs for over 20 years
without anything to show, other than 600,000 Canadians now having
"criminal" records for the "vice" of taking the wrong social drugs. Drug
users are sinners, they are not criminals and they are not sick.

When one stops to think about all that prohibition has accomplished in the
last 93 years, it is plain to see the idea of controlling drugs belongs in
the realm of totalitarian regimes. The reason is that in order to control
what substances a free man may ingest, the state must also control what
ideas he may put in his head.

So let's measure the "success" of the drug section in Delta. Four full
time cops at $60,000 a year and one support staff for paper work, etc. at
another $40,000. In the past year there's been 116 people arrested, with
let's say a modest guess, because no one ever quantifies how much this drug
war costs, of five hours of court time per arrest.

With a judge, court reporter, Crown attorney, assorted flunkies, building,
heat and incidental paper costs, etc., it would not take long for one
million tax dollars to be consumed. For what?

With all the arrests, does anybody really believe there was even a one-day
shortage of drug supply? Even if all 116 people went to jail forever, at a
cost of $50,000 a year, the profits available on the Black Market replaced
them in a heartbeat.

In liquor speak, what would you do if Elliot Ness busted your supplier's
still? Brew your own perhaps or would you have a new found respect for the
law and quit drinking?

Restore our natural right to drugs, all of them. It is a right mankind has
owned since time began. Canadians are mature enough to make their own drug
taking decisions and no amount of enforced righteousness is going to change
that.

Chris Buors