PROHIBITION WRONG APPROACH TO DRUGS

Re: "Young teens trying booze and drugs" (Gazette, May 19), in which a new
study cites growing alcohol and drug use among 12- to 15-year-olds.

Growing up in Hudson in the 1980s, I was bombarded with Just Say No
propaganda. My father would threaten me with terrible punishment for even
thinking about drugs.

This made me all the more curious. Prohibition didn't work on me then, and
it isn't working on kids now. Harsh penalties have never been a deterrent
to drug use; they are an invitation to it.

At a time when Canadians are consuming junk food and caffeine as never
before, and obesity is killing more people than cannabis (or even alcohol)
ever could, maybe it's time we changed our strategy. Dispel the myths, lift
the taboo, and kids will lose interest.

In the Netherlands, where cannabis is sold to adults in "coffee shops," the
teen cannabis use rate is one-third what it is in Canada.

The concept of punishing someone for a consumer choice is old and tired. It
is time to legalize drugs, and regulate and tax them. It might not solve
the problem entirely, but how much more evidence do we need that
prohibition simply has not worked, and never will?

Russell Barth

Ottawa