Two enthusiastic thumbs way, way up for printing Dan Gardner's series
on the Americans' lunatic Drug Wars.

The ghastly fact is that this bloody, futile attempt at prohibition
results annually in the "collateral damage", right here in Vancouver,
of hundreds of deaths among the drug-using population, and the loss of
scores of millions of dollars in property theft and damage.

In the absence of ridiculously punitive legal sanctions drug use would
once again become what it used to be; for most, an occasional
recreation considerably less risky than cigarette smoking, or any of a
variety of currently popular "extreme" sports; for a few, a source of
ongoing inconvenient but not terribly debilitating dependence; and,
for a very few, an illness requiring treatment and therapy.

Yet we seem incapable of escaping the throes of Drug War madness.
Downtown Eastside merchants and residents are whipped into apoplectic
rage at the mere suggestion of such rational and compassionate
expedients as safe injection sites. They clamour for the stern
maintenance of those laws and policies which serve principally to
succour rampant crime, individual rot and social barbarism in their
own neighbourhood.

It is perhaps the blackest comedy of our times.

Ross Harvey,
Vancouver