DRUG LEGALISATION IS PLAYING RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Willem Buiter's proposal on these pages last week for the European
Union (and the world) to legalise all drugs, including heroin and
cocaine, is a one-way ticket to destroying millions of children,
increasing violent crime and pushing up healthcare costs.

Like most legalisation buffs, Professor Buiter suggests a regulated
system where access to drugs would be prohibited for minors. Our
experience with laws restricting access by children and adolescents to
tobacco and alcohol makes it clear that keeping legal drugs away from
minors would be an impossible dream. Teen smoking and drinking are at
epidemic levels in the US and across much of the European continent.
In Great Britain, keeping bars open has led to an explosion of
drunkenness among teens so widespread that the government is likely to
return to limited hours for pubs.

Today, the US has some 60m regular smokers, up to 20m alcoholics and
alcohol abusers and about 6m illegal drug addicts. Experts such as
Columbia University's Herbert Kleber believe that, with legalisation,
the number of cocaine addicts alone could leapfrog beyond the number
of alcoholics. The experience of European nations that have tried
various shades of legalisation bears him out.

Switzerland's "Needle Park", touted as a way to restrict a few hundred
heroin users to a small area, turned into a grotesque tourist
attraction of 20,000 heroin addicts and junkies. It had to be closed
before it infected the entire city of Zurich.

In the Netherlands, anyone over the age of 17 can drop into a
marijuana "coffee shop" and pick types of marijuana just as they might
choose flavours of ice-cream. As crime and the availability of drugs
rose, and complaints from angry residents about the decline in their
quality of life multiplied, the Dutch parliament trimmed back the
number of marijuana shops in Amsterdam and the amount that can be sold
to an individual.

Under decriminalisation in Italy, possession of a few doses of drugs
such as heroin has generally been exempt from criminal sanction.
Today, Italy has about 200,000 addicts, the highest rate of heroin
addiction in Europe. Most Aids cases in Italy are attributable to drug
use. England's foray into allowing any doctor to prescribe heroin was
curbed as heroin use increased. Professor Buiter would have
legalisation occur across all of Europe so there are no countries that
are enclaves of drug use. In other words, if you like what's happened
in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Italy, you'll love legalisation
across the European Union.

Easy availability of drugs will increase criminal activity. Most
violent crimes, such as murders, assaults and rapes, occur when the
perpetrator is high or drunk, and much of property crime involves
people seeking money to buy drugs. In the US, half the beds in most
hospitals are filled with people sick or injured as a result of drug
use, drinking and smoking.

Professor Buiter promotes "our cigarette manufacturers, [as]
well-positioned to enter this trade" of selling heroin, cocaine,
marijuana, methamphetamine and designer drugs such as ecstasy. Talk
about letting the fox loose in the chicken coop! For decades the
nicotine pushers like RJ Reynolds, Brown and Williamson, and Philip
Morris have been hawking their wares to kids. Twenty years ago the
cigarette company Reynolds Tobacco (RJR) created a cartoon character
called Joe Camel and so heavily promoted him that more children
recognised him than Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse.

Only after years of complaints from public health advocates and
parents, and the threat of legal action by the Federal Trade
Commission, did RJR shut down its Joe Camel campaign. RJR tried to
push candy-flavoured cigarettes that mask the harshness of natural
tobacco for young first-time users.

Does the world want to create a Philip Morris for weed? An RJR for
cocaine? Do we want cigarette companies that by their own admission
seek "replacement smokers" for those who die or quit smoking, seeking
"replacement drug addicts" for those who shake their habit?

There is no basis to assume that cigarette companies will take a
different approach when selling drugs. After all, these are the guys
who continue to promote a product that, when used as intended, kills
and maims millions of people across the world.

Professor Buiter touts taxes on the sale of illegal drugs as a great
source of revenue for public purposes. This blithely ignores the
history of tenacious opposition to tax increases that has marked the
tobacco and alcohol companies. As a result, taxes collected on the
sale of these products cover only a small fraction of the costs in
healthcare and criminal justice attributable to smoking and drinking.

Legalisation assures greater availability, and availability is the
mother of use. That poses a clear and present danger to our children.
Research at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at
Columbia University has found that an individual who gets to the age
of 21 without smoking, using drugs or abusing alcohol is virtually
certain never to do so. Every drug-dealer, cigarette manufacturer and
spirits company knows this - and acts on it. Viewed from this
perspective, substance abuse and addiction are diseases typically
acquired during childhood and adolescence.

Today most kids do not use illicit drugs, but all of them,
particularly the poorest, are vulnerable to abuse and addiction.
Russian roulette is not a game anyone should play. Legalising drugs is
not only playing Russian roulette with children, it is slipping a
couple of extra bullets into the chamber.