LEGALIZE MARIJUANA, NOT HARD DRUGS

Regarding Mindy Jacobs's Feb. 27 column on the drug trade. She
indicated that Vancouver addictions expert Mark Haden suggested that
if recreational drugs were legalized, drug buyers should be registered
and tracked. However, alcohol buyers are not registered and tracked,
yet alcohol is a drug and is, by far, more destructive to society in
pretty much every measurable way. Instead, it would be better to
legalize marijuana and sell that in liquor stores and triple or
quadruple the penalties for possession or sale of harder drugs such as
crack or heroin. That way the government gets its cut on the sale of
marijuana (a relatively benign recreational drug), and there would be
meaningful deterrents to the use of harder drugs.

Darcy Holden

(No 'deterrent' can end human desire and addiction.)