U.S. WAR ON DRUGS IS A COMPLETE FAILURE

Dear Editor:

Thanks for publishing Jerry Paradis' outstanding Dec. 17 column Doomed
to Repeat History.

The American led war on drugs was doomed from the very beginning.
Regardless of the money put into the anti-drugs program, we cannot
nullify the basic supply and demand law of economics.

As long as people want to purchase recreational drugs and they are
willing to pay a substantial price for them, somebody will produce the
drugs and somebody else will get the drugs to the willing buyers.

This is guaranteed.

The war on drugs has transformed the United States into the most
incarcerated nation in history. With less than five per cent of the
world's population, the United States has about a quarter of the
world's prisoners. In other words, one out of every four prisoners in
the world is locked in an American prison, thanks primarily to
America's counter-productive war on certain (politically selected)
drugs.

The United States government is in no position to give any other
nation advice on how to run an anti-drugs campaign.

No other nation has wasted more resources on fighting drugs and no
other nation has imprisoned more citizens for drug law violations, yet
no other nation has been less successful in solving its narcotics
problem than the United States.

My advice to Canada and the rest of the world: Carefully observe the
U.S. anti-drug policy and then do the opposite.

Don't follow us, we're lost.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Arizona