HIGH COST DOES NOT DETER DRUG-USERS

WAYNE SIEVERS puts forward a disturbingly close-to-the-bone argument
with his letter (CT, March 8) on the relationship between prohibition
and the cost of heroin.

Each and every comment is correct but I must ask Mr Sievers, is his
own sobriety a function of the prohibitive costs of purchasing heroin
under black-market conditions? I myself have chosen to avoid heroin
after watching dear friends battle with, and mostly lose against, the
addiction of opiates.

I found the prospect of death a prohibitive cost: for those not
deterred by that prospect I am afraid that purely financial
considerations simply don't enter into the equation.

Expensive heroin kills as many lost souls as cheap heroin but cheap
heroin does not profit black marketeers, insurance companies, weapons
manufacturers and law-enforcement agencies.

C. P. KILLICK-MORAN
Scullin