DRUG LAWS ONLY ENCOURAGE ORGANIZED CRIME

Editor, The News:

Re: Skyrocketing youth crime distressing (The News, Aug. 14)

"Drugs are driving a lot of the entrepreneurial competition that seem
to result in many killings."

No, drug prohibition is driving the entrepreneurial competition. If
drugs were legal and regulated, the gangs would not have anywhere near
the power, or the power to attract recruits.

Until we grow up and realize that all drugs should be regulated
equally, we will continue to have these problems. Prohibition is
outrageously counterproductive, so doing more of it in the hopes that
it will somehow, eventually work is folly at best.

Regulating marijuana for example would save us about $1 billion in
annual costs for cops, courts, and cages, and it would generate an
estimated $3 billion in annual tax revenue. That's $4 billion every
year that we could put into art, education, sports, housing,
healthcare, and job creation. That's a good way to keep kids out of
gangs.

Russell Barth

Ottawa