MORE TO IT THAN 'JUST SAY NO'

Re 'Handsome, articulate' - and dead, June 16

George Chuvalo was a courageous and skillful boxer, but his take on
the tragic heroin-induced deaths of his sons is tragically wrong.
Simply urging kids to 'just say no' to drugs just doesn't work and
besides, it was drug prohibition that killed his sons, not the drug itself.

Prohibition works in two ways to harm users.

First, the drugs are often adulterated because of prohibition, so
that, even though the 1973 Le Dain Commission concluded, "There
appears to be little permanent physiological damage from chronic use
of pure opiate narcotics." Prohibition kills users by denying them
access to unadulterated drugs.

History provides confirmation of this process when we recall that the
prohibition of alcohol poisoned thousands by denying them access to
unadulterated alcohol.

My nineteen-year-old son, Peter, died in February of 1993 shortly
after ingesting some street heroin.

Second, the prices charged by dealers are much higher than they would
be if the drugs were legally available at the corner store because
the dealer has to factor in the possibility of being caught by the police.

How sad to see that George Chuvalo has been bamboozled into
supporting the very laws that killed his sons, the failed crusade of
drug prohibition.

Alan Randell

Victoria, B.C.