THINK-TANK ANALYST TOUTS LEGALIZED DOPE

Heroin, cocaine, pot -- legalize them all, says an analyst with B.C.'s Fraser Institute.

Ottawa and Washington are losing the drug war and need to change their tactics to stem the growing number of junkies and stop wrangling tax money for a failing cause, said Patrick Basham, a social policy analyst with the think-tank.

"The costs of drug prohibition far out-weigh any benefits that come from it," Basham said yesterday.

Basham, along with Cannabis Culture publisher Marc Emery, lawyer Rod Gregory and others will discuss the drug war at 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Hotel Macdonald in a forum put on by Teaching Liberty Inc.

Basham said he's in favour of legalizing all drugs and ending a battle that costs $2 billion a year in Canada to run.

"We have 90 years of evidence that prohibition doesn't work," he said, pointing out that prior to 1913, opium could be purchased by anyone through the mail.

Gregory agrees, saying there has to be another way of controlling drug abuse instead of throwing anyone caught with a gram of cocaine in jail.

"I don't know what the solution is for hard drugs," Gregory said. "I don't see how we're helping by sending an 18-year-old to jail for selling one gram of coke."

Legalization and federal regulation of the drug industry will take away the profit motive which drives up street prices and makes pushing dope attractive, Basham said.

Making illicit drugs legal doesn't appeal to Edmonton's acting police Chief Bob Wasylyshen.

"That's an extremely simplistic view," he said.

The real solution is to take away the demand for drugs and starve the dealers of cash, he said. "That's where our long-term focus has to be."