FREE HEROIN SMART OR SIMPLY SOCIALISTIC?

Editor, The News:

Re: Guest editorial from Maple Ridge News ('Junkies can rejoice! Free
heroin will soon flow,' Feb. 12):

The debate about distribution of heroin to addicts is complicated by the
language used by prohibitionists.

Firstly, their is no such thing as free heroin. But one can compare
distribution systems.

In a free distribution system the heroin costs pennies per dose, and is
distributed at a minimal cost, just like aspirin.

Therefore, the public does not have to pay for police officers, judges,
lawyers, jails and courts. All of these people are unnecessary parts of the
present organized crime distribution system.

They all take there percentage under the present system and all get paid
out of your tax dollars. Then there is the actual cost of the drug itself.

Instead of being produced and distributed for pennies the illegal product
costs hundreds or thousands of dollars a week and is distributed by
organized crime.

This cash must be raised via petty theft, drug trafficking or prostitution.

In the case of petty theft we all pay sooner or later.

Drug trafficking just introduces new users into the loop, keeping all of
the above stakeholders comfortably employed while perpetuating the cycle.

In the case of prostitution, one case of aids or hepatitis will cost the
taxpayer a lot more that a few pennies.

The fact is that if the word free could be accurately used in the context
of prohibition, it is the traffickers and those in the court system who
have been getting a free lunch, and now they will all have to find real
work and the taxpayer will save a lot of money.

Chuck Beyer, Victoria