ANOTHER LOOK AT DRUGS

Editor, the Times:

To The Editor, RE: Gangsters, meth dealers targeting 12-year-olds,
Times April 23.

"The only objective for organized crime is to make money and they
don't care who consumes their product," he said.

And this is because of prohibition. Honestly, what evidence, if any,
do the police have to support the notion that more jails and more cops
is going to fix this problem? They don't have any, because there isn't
any. All the evidence shows that prohibition is the cause of this
mess, not the solution to it.

We live in a culture that glamourizes sex, fun, danger, thrills,
law-scoffing, risk-taking, rule-breaking, power, wealth-acquisition
and authority-resisting. We advertise booze, fast cars, fast food,
violent movies and video games and drugs of all kinds right on TV!
Then we tell kids that "drugs are bad".

We should not be trying to "prevent" drug use, we should be trying to
maximize the benefits while mitigating the dangers, and bamboozling
kids with fear-mongering, misinformation, and balderdash is not going
to help. For those keen on teaching kids about drugs without all the
hyperbole, I recommend the Canadian Students For Sensible Drug Policy
website (www.cssdp.org), the Educators For Sensible Drug Policy
website at (www.efsdp.org), or the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
website at (www.leap.cc).

Russell Barth

Nepean, Ontario