WAR ON DRUGS SIMPLY FUELS VIOLENT CRIME

Re: "Jacksonville's murder rate tops list in Florida" (news article, April 16).

Laced throughout the article are references to drugs being a
contributing factor in the high murder rate. I couldn't agree more.
However, it's the so-called "war on drugs" that really deserves the blame.

As long as the government continues to inflate the profit to be made
from drug dealing, we will have drug dealers. As long as we have
dealers, they will ensure a ready market for their product by getting
people hooked on it. This situation drives at least two types of
crime: drug turf wars by dealers and desperate attempts to satisfy a
high-cost need by users. Both of these create a deadly environment
where robbery and murder are the inevitable outcome.

The war on drugs is a failed policy that has only increased drug use
and these attendant crimes. Eliminate the war and you eliminate the
profit, which eliminates the market, which eliminates the drug-related crime.

Of course, there will still be some drug use, but very little
drug-associated crime. And a fraction of the billions of tax dollars
wasted by the current misguided policy can be redirected toward
solving society's real problems. Maybe we can even remove many of the
incentives for needing drugs.

GARY STILWELL

[email redacted]