LEGALIZING DRUGS URGED AS WAY TO END WAR ON DRUGS

End market for big profits, S.L. panelist says

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

That's attorney Danny Quintana's sentiment concerning America's war on
drugs, which some believe is being won by drug dealers and users.

A panel of local law enforcement officials and drug treatment workers
gathered Wednesday at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, 231 E. 100 South, for
a public discussion on whether the war on drugs should continue. This was
the second of four discussions planned.

Quintana does not advocate the use of illegal drugs. He just wants to see
the international drug trade industry which generates between $150
billion and $160 billion per year put out of business.

The only way to do that, Quintana said, is for the Drug Enforcement Agency
to stop spending nearly $15 billion a year in trying to keep illegal drugs
out of the country. Instead, the responsibility of regulating drugs should
be passed on to the federal government basically making them as legal as
tobacco or alcohol.

The strategy behind Quintana's proposal is meant to put drug dealers out
business by making it as easy to purchase drugs as going to the liquor
store. If the drugs are purchased under licensed dealers, the demand would
eventually go down and the illegal dealers would be out of business,
Quintana said.

"Drugs are corrupting the very fiber of our society. If the government took
over, the drug dealers would go away and sell lawn mowers or something
else," Quintana said. "They're businessmen and they're very bright people.
They know exactly what they're doing."

Other members of the panel talked about more solutions to stopping drugs,
most of which are a little more conventional and less controversial, such as
education and programs for offenders.

But the one thing panel members did agree on is that something has to be
done, and sending people to prison isn't the answer.

"Prison is the most dehumanizing form of punishment we have," said Frederick
Van der Veur, director of the division of institutional operations for the
Department of Corrections. "Locking people up doesn't solve anything other
than keeping them from stealing your television. If they're in jail, you can
bet they aren't on the streets selling drugs to your kids."

Once convicts get out of prison, 85 percent of them return, Van der Veur
said.

"There is no silver bullet in this business that will make things better,"
said Barbara Hardy, director of Salt Lake County's substance abuse program.
"You can't punish somebody into being good. It just doesn't work like that."

Hardy believes that America's drug problem has been generated by a society
that expects to be delivered from pain simply by taking a pill.

"We are inundated with the idea that if we have a problem, we can take a
drug to get rid of the pain, and the problem goes away," Hardy said.

"I don't believe there is such a thing as a 'war on drugs.' We're having a
war on ourselves."

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett