LOGIC-INJECTION SITE

Margaret Wente inadvertently hit the nail on the head (Shooting Up Is
A Charter Right? - June 3) when she pointed out that most drinkers,
unlike heroin addicts, do not have to steal or sell sex to get their
alcohol supplied from gangster cartels. The hypocrisy is, it's the
illegality of heroin that causes this. The price of heroin is
massively inflated by the black market. Legal heroin would not cost
very much; just look at how cheap a tonne of opium goes for in
Afghanistan. When alcohol was illegal, the profits also went to
gangsters, and the prices went up and the safety and quality went
down. The difference between shooting heroin and drinking whisky is
the legality and cultural acceptability of the booze. All have risks
and cause harm, but at least the legality of alcohol prevents it from
providing inflated profits to insurgents to buy guns to kill Canadian
soldiers.

David Silver, Winnipeg