DRUG PROHIBITION BENEFITS ONLY THE DEALERS

CRISPIN HULL raises the vexed question of sentencing parity in drug-
related crimes (CT, December 2, pC1). His article illustrates what a
circular argument it all is.

Traditionally the courts have sentenced those charged with supplying
drugs more harshly than the user of those drugs when the user commits
the almost inevitable crimes to pay the suppliers.

The reasoning behind this is analogous to the higher penalties
allowed in the Crimes Act for the receivers of stolen property than
for those who stole it in the first place - if there was no-one to
receive the goods there would be no point in stealing them.

For drug-related crimes this translates to the logic that if there
were no drugs to buy there would be no crimes committed in order to
pay for them.

What is the answer to all this? Isn't it screamingly,
up-in-neon-lights obvious that the answer is to make heroin legal?
Provide heroin on prescription and the dealer's trade vanishes
overnight - and your video and television are safe and video stores
and supermarkets can send the security guards home.

The only people who do well out of the present prohibition are the dealers.

JENNIFER SAUNDERS
Canberra City

WE MUST REMOVE PROFIT MARGIN

The Australian Institute of Criminology's annual ACT drug survey
reported by Leah de Forest (CT p4, Dec 1) adds urgency to the need to
change our present policies.

The report mentions use commencing as young as 12 years.

There is no point in blaming the 12 year olds, or in blaming their
parents or their school. These facts have been discovered
retrospectively by anecdotes extracted from the users years after
they started use, and only then because their use has come to
attention.

There is no point in blaming the traffickers, because we are only
able to identify a small percentage of them, and their arrest and
incarceration immediately results in a new recruit or two to their
profitable ranks.

Twentieth Century prohibition has resulted in profit margins far
greater than for any service or product throughout world history.

This trend will worsen until we have the courage to bring these
dangerous drugs back within the law, remove the enormous profit
margins that encourage sale to disaffected young, and provide
adequate treatment to dependent users.

PETER WATNEY
Holt