LEGALITY IS POOR POLICY

I read with interest the letter in your paper from Russell Barth of
Ottawa who seems to be another of those great thinkers that believe if
we legalize drugs all our problems will be solved even with more money
for governments so they can waste yet more of our tax dollars.

Barth seems to question the policies of the Drug Prevention Network of
Canada so let me make it clear what our four main principles are. To
promote a healthy lifestyle -- free of drugs, to advocate no use of
illegal drugs and no abuse of legal drugs, to oppose legalization of
drugs and to support the United Nations conventions and treaties
concerning drugs.

I realize there are people like Mr. Barth who could be offended or
even not understand such principles but I believe most Canadians would
rather work with those principles than legalization of drugs,
legalization of prostitution, injection sites and other such
principles that hurt people rather than focus on prevention, treatment
and enforcement.

The Drug Prevention Network of Canada has a national board consisting
of three medical doctors and 11 other people who have a vast amount of
experience in the drug addiction field. All of them believe strongly
in our principles and none of them believe as Mr. Barth suggests that
we are keeping "this country from moving forward with sensible drug
policy."

Sensible drug policy is not legalization. Perhaps one of these days
Mr. Barth would like to accompany me to a rehabilitation center and
talk to those addicted and maybe, just maybe he would understand the
difficulties we have in Canada by open drug policies like Vancouver is
headed towards.

Randy White

Qualicum Beach