PROHIBITION CREATES NEW PROBLEMS

Re "It's time to seriously consider ending prohibition on drugs"
(Viewpoints, April 5): Prohibition, whether of alcohol or the illegal
drugs du jour, never works in the sense that it fails to eliminate the
problem of drug abuse and addiction. What it does is create an
entirely new set of problems and costs through supporting violent,
organized crime, and the costs of incarceration and criminal justice.
Which is more costly to society: a small percentage of legal drug
addicts (who will probably be on welfare, but that's cheaper than
jail), or financing the Taliban and gangs at home, destabilizing
Mexican society by corrupting police forces, funding the FARC leftist
rebels in Colombia and so many drug-related murders . not to mention
billions upon billions of dollars on interdiction and incarceration?
It's not a question of whether drug use is bad. It's a practical
question of how best to deal with the existence of addictive
substances in the natural world.

Amy Rogers

Sacramento