ILLEGALITY IS THE PROBLEM, NOT DRUGS

“SOCIETY continues to pay the price in the ruined lives and failed careers
which ... lie waiting for today’s Cocaine Generation,” Tobyn Andreae
writes, baffled at levels of cocaine use (Cocaine latest cocktail for a
high society, The Examiner, September 15.).

In reality, numbers of addictions and deaths attributed to cocaine are low;
so low that there is no very serious public health problem, and numbers are
hardly ever reported. Generally, the numbers of deaths caused by tobacco,
alcohol and all drugs are in a 100/1 to 25/1 ratio; almost all of the drug
deaths are related to heroin.

With cocaine, lives and careers are mainly ruined when people get trapped
in the legal nets of drug prohibition. If Andreae has any real concerns
about the matter, I suggest he should expand his perspective a little.
Literally hundreds of thousands are in prison for being associated to drugs
somehow.

Drug prohibition is a misguided policy that is causing society an immense
amount of harm, but it is losing ground among informed people. Still,
Andreae writes, “a downturn in the economy would soon reduce demand but it
is unlikely that a government would place a social agenda above fiscal
concerns.” Such musings place him outside of reality altogether. This,
unfortunately, is the level at which important social issues are too often
discussed.

Harry Bego

Singeldwarsstraat 4 3513 BS

Utrecht, Holland

e-mail: hbego@knoware.nl