LEGALIZATION REDUCES CRIME

Dear Editor,

Ms. Huziak [Legal drugs would add crime, Oct. 27 Letters, Langley
Advance], who took anti-prohibitionist Mr. Harvey [Law puts money in
thungs' pockets, Oct. 16 Letters, Langley Advance] to task for
"fallacious" statements, needs to look in the mirror and give her
head a shake. Her letter was filled with myths, assumptions, and
outright falsehoods.

Drugs - all of them - were legal prior to prohibition, just like
alcohol. Plus, like it or not, the desire for drugs exists now,
despite (and maybe in part because of) prohibition. There is
absolutely no evidence that ending prohibition will increase usage.
Indeed, usage of cannabis in the Netherlands, where it is legal, is
significantly lower than here where it is illegal. [Editor's note: In
fact, cannabis is not technically legal in the Netherlands, but laws
prohibiting its use are not enforced.]

Peer-reviewed studies demonstrate that use rates exist independently
of legality. We have been successful in reducing alcohol-impaired
driving through public education and changing mores, not through
criminalization and incarceration.

The idea that there will be more illegal dealers post-prohibition is
laughable. Right now, high school students report that it is much
easier to obtain illegal drugs than alcohol. And teenage tobacco use
is down, not up. Again, this is due to public education and changing
mores, not criminalization and incarceration.

There will be no increase in crime if drugs were made legal. Just the
opposite. Where legal heroin trials have been tried, for example,
drug-seeking crime by addicts was reduced dramatically. That's
scientific fact. And you don't see alcohol sellers shooting each
other over booze turf, because it is a regulated market. They used
to, however, during prohibition.

Finally, drugs are illegal because of racist and hysterical policies
enacted 100 years ago, not because of an honest assessment of harm.
The hysteria is echoed by Ms. Huziak, who apparently thinks that
people struggling with addiction - a disease - are "drug-crazed
addicts" instead of human beings. And if she thinks addiction doesn't
exist in her neighbourhood, she needs to drop her class bias and wake
up to reality.

Addiction is not a disease affecting only the DTES.

Kirk Tousaw, Vancouver