LEGALIZING DRUGS LEADS TO LOWER DRUG-USE RATES

I'm writing about Randy Serraglio,'s outstanding column (April 15). Of
course, many drug-war cheerleaders will proclaim that if we
re-legalized all of the drugs the cartels deal in the United States,
drug use and abuse will skyrocket.

In the Netherlands, where marijuana has been quasi-legal for several
decades, the Dutch use marijuana at less than half of the rate
Americans do. And they use heroin at less than a third of the rate
Americans do. (See www.drugwarfacts.org/thenethe.htm.)

In 2001, Portugal abolished all criminal penalties for personal
possession of all drugs. Have the rates of drug use and abuse
skyrocketed in Portugal? No, they have fallen.

In 1994, Switzerland started an experimental program to sell heroin
addicts the drug at very low cost, even giving it to the addicts who
couldn't afford it. In 2008, 68 percent of the Swiss voted to make the
program permanent. Have Swiss heroin-addiction rates skyrocketed? No,
they have fallen dramatically. So has their overall crime rate.

So, claims that if our now-illegal drugs are re-legalized, drug use
and abuse will skyrocket are totally bogus.

Kirk Muse