PROHIBITION CAN BE DEADLY

Editor, The Record:

Re: Crystal meth comes to town, The Record, March 22

I see that prohibition is working as well as it always has.

Nearly all the harm done to users and non-users alike by illegal drugs is
because the drugs are prohibited. Thousands were poisoned by adulterated
booze during Prohibition and thousands more are dying today because of
adulterated drugs, an aspect of government policy my wife and I became well
acquainted with when our 19-year-old son, Peter, died shortly after
ingesting some street heroin in 1993. Drug prohibition encourages crime,
too, as was shown when Al Capone rose to power after alcohol was banned.

Let us never forget also that drug prohibition is racist in origin. It
began almost a century ago when the drugs used by certain non-white
minorities (blacks, Chinese, Mexicans) were banned ostensibly to protect
virtuous white Christian women from being seduced by these minorities.

Today, the police are happy to make use of this racist legislation to
control and harass those whose lifestyle or skin colour offends them.

The best way to reduce the harm and heartbreak of illegal drugs is to end
drug prohibition. Let's legalize all drugs, remove the propaganda and the
police from the equation and have the drugs manufactured by knowledgeable,
competent organizations that will supply cheap, quality-tested drugs of
known purity and potency and that, in order to avoid legal liability, will
impart factual drug information to us and our children.

Alan Randell, Victoria