DRUG USE 'HORRORS' SHOULD BE PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE

To the Editor:

Re: Nicole Larusso "Drug crusaders listen up," (NDN letters, August 15, 2006)

I would like to respond to Ms. Lorusso's obvious and laudable concern
for the children.

As Ms. Lorusso's letter clearly indicated, it is true that our
children currently have greater access to "illegal" drugs than they
do to tobacco and alcohol. And it is also true that neither she, nor
anyone else, has the right to dictate what an adult may or may not
decide to put into his or her body.

Alcohol prohibition began as a cry to "save the children" and ended
the very same way. This so-called "War On Drugs," has us re-visiting
this dismal failed social experiment. Overnight, drug prohibition
created criminals out of users. Prisons and jails are overflowing
with people whose only "crime" was to use a drug while pedophiles,
rapists and violent criminals walk free.

In a social atmosphere of anti-prohibition, when the drug laws are
repealed - and when drugs (all drugs) are regulated and taxed (like
the state sanctioned alcohol and tobacco laws) then and only then
will our children be safe from the horrors Ms. Lorusso has witnessed.

Mahara Sinclaire

Vancouver, B.C.