LEGALIZE, CONTROL DRUGS TO HIT AT CRIMINALS

Drugs should be legalized, taxed, and regulated. Outlawing drugs
promotes organized crime by providing revenue generating avenues such
as drug production, trafficking, and distribution. The demand for
illegal drugs is extremely high. This assures an endless drug supply
that governments have been ineffective in stopping. The Canadian
government spends tremendous amounts of money each year in efforts to
stop illegal drug activities. The legalization of drugs provides tax
revenue for the government, ensures drugs are safer and eliminates a
major source of organized crime revenue.

Legal drugs can be taxed and regulated; illegal drugs cannot. Illegal
drugs are similar to the days of Prohibition when the cost of
enforcing prohibition was high, and the lack of tax revenues on
alcohol affected government coffers.

The cost of enforcing drug laws is extremely high and very
ineffective. Taxed and regulated drugs provide income for the
government and assure the drugs are safer due to government
regulation. As a former police officer I am a supporter of Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition, an international organization of
criminal justice professionals who bear personal witness to the
wasteful futility and harms of our current drug policies.

Our combined experience on the front lines of the "war on drugs" has
led us to call for a repeal of prohibition and its replacement with a
tight system of legalized regulation, which will cripple the violent
cartels and street dealers who control the current illegal market.

William Perry

Victoria