DRUGS HERE TO STAY

Editor:

Re: Drug-Free Delta Plan a Little Too Ambitious: Chief (South Delta
Leader, Oct. 27)

Vancouver's police budget last year was $156 million. The chief (and
many others) say 70 - 80 per cent of all crime is drug-related. This
means that $105 million was wasted as we continue this 82-year-old,
failed approach to drugs in our society.

I am amazed that we can spend $100,000 a year jailing a person but not
$10,000 a year on affordable housing.

Billions Are Spent Fighting Drugs in Canada.

We live in a vacuum if we think drugs will disappear. And we ignore
the fact that the largest segment of drug users in society are in fact
the elderly. We can argue needs versus wants, legal versus illegal,
prescribed or acquired, but the fact remains.

Prohibition is the cause of violence, gangs, crime, shootings,
homelessness, poverty, disease and even the erosion of our own basics
rights.

It's Not the Drugs.

People coming to our Olympics would have more respect for us if we
were a progressive society helping people with what some consider poor
choices instead of exploiting their weakness by making weakness a
victimless, chargeable crime and taxing all of us to pay jail them.

John Shavluk

Delta