CREATE SAFER SOCIETY - END WAR ON DRUGS

Editor:

I read your recent story detailing the attack on an undercover police
officer in Kamloops ('A reminder of the drug world's violence,' Sept.
4) and wanted to offer a suggestion on how to make police safer,
improve their overall effectiveness and reduce crime and violence -
end the drug war.

If the few currently illegal drugs were, instead, legally produced and
sold in licensed businesses, there would be no need for police to
engage in these types of dangerous undercover operations.

And there would be none of the violence associated with black markets
in substances.

Why should police have to "resort to any means" to go after drug
dealers?

It is patently obvious the prohibition approach is not working.

Police are "surprised" by how much MDMA (ecstasy) is available but,
hey, the coke and crack is pretty much normal

And this despite pouring millions of dollars each year into the black
hole that is prohibition.

Is that how we want to spend our limited resources?

I just read that funding for education in B.C. has been cut by $54
million this year.

Education is the key to reducing the demand for dangerous drugs, yet
we cut those budgets while, year after year, dedicating more to
policing, prisons and courts.

Policing, prisons and courts are ineffective at reducing either the
supply of, or demand for, drugs, which puts law enforcement officers
at great risk.

What a tragedy.

Kirk Tousaw

Vancouver