HOW PROHIBITION BOOSTS DRUG USE

I'm writing about Ian Oliver's not-so-thoughtful article, "Legalising
drugs would only make matters worse" (19 August). If all types of
recreational drugs were legalised and sold in regulated, controlled
and taxed business establishments for pennies per dose, your overall
crime rate would decline dramatically, and public safety would
increase substantially.

And I believe your overall hard drug usage rates would decline
substantially. That is because drug-dealers as we know them today
would disappear for economic reasons.

The first time almost all drug-users use a particular drug, they don't
buy it: either a friend or drug dealer gives it to them. Most retail
dealers of hard drugs are addicts themselves. They sell drugs to
finance their own habit and recruit new users by offering free samples
to potential customers. With the end of drug prohibition, this
practice would end.

KIRK MUSE

Mesa, Arizona, USA