PROHIBITION NOT A SOLUTION

Dear Editor:

Re: Church raises drug awareness (Airdrie Echo, Oct. 13)

I hope The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' version of "drug
awareness" is not a lot of prohibitionist propaganda about how "pot leads
to harder drugs" and other moralistic dogma. I hope someone gets up and
makes the point that back in the 1920s, it was actually mothers who pushed
the government to legalize and regulate alcohol so that their children
would have restricted access, and that the same would work with all drugs
today.

If we want to restrict the access that children have to drugs, we as a
society should legalize and regulate them for adult consumption. It won't
cure the problem, but it will certainly make it better and reduce teen drug
use, abuse and harm. As it is now, teens are buying drugs in playgrounds,
usually from other teens.

The prohibitionist policy we have employed for the past 80 years hasn't
worked, has cost a fortune and has made drugs of all kinds more popular
than ever. We need to look at regulation as a way of reducing harm, saving
lives and saving money. If prohibition was going to work, it would have
worked by now.

Russell Barth

Ottawa, Ont.