BLAME BEING PLACED IN WRONG PLACES

Re: Drug prohibition works against Tarnish program

Travis Erbacher's entire letter seems to be one of circular reasoning.
He continually states there is lots of money in the drug trade, then
continues to simply repeat this ideology in several different ways.

Erbacher does not address an exact reasoning for why the "anti-gang"
program will fail aside from his single statement about the poor
economy; but one must realize the poor economy affects all jobs, not
just the drug trade, and there are many other factors that contribute
in a program's ability to be successful.

Erbacher's letter rests the success rate of the anti-drug Operation
Tarnish program solely on the economic appeal of the drug trade and
what the police are/are not doing to stop it.

After reading this letter, the one prodding realization I had was that
people often place the blame of the drug issue on the wrong subjects,
or even objects. Are drugs the real enemy? Are narcotics and their
economic appeal the issue we should be worried about? No. The issue is
the people that are looking for "the easiest and fastest" way to make
money. Perhaps if we raised our children with the ideology that you
must work hard to be successful, in a community that places far too
much importance on cash, we may not have as many money-hungry
individuals who are unwilling to do honest work.

As for Erbacher's argument "the RCMP are protecting their drug
budgets, and jobs, at the cost of innocent lives," do we really
believe police are trying to intentionally keep around the drug
problem simply to make money for themselves?

Yes, as with any job, there are people who are in the law enforcement
profession for the wrong reasons.

However, I, for one, would like to believe the majority of cops on our
streets are working to clean up our community and it does not seem
fair to assume all cops are trying to drag out the drug issue solely
for their own gain "at the cost of innocent lives."

Perhaps the Tarnish program would be more likely to succeed if more
people supported it rather than predicting failure.

Danielle Nadeau