OR WOULD IT JUST CAUSE NEW PROBLEMS?

Michael Chettleburgh may know something about gangs but it's crystal
clear that he knows little about the dynamics of addiction or the
resilience of the drug trade. Addicts take drugs because they don't
like the way they feel -- they want to feel different. Why? Because,
in Mr. Chettleburgh's language, they're "poor, marginalized,
inadequately supervised, surrounded by violence and neglect in
crumbling communities."

He also argues that drug users should have the right to harm
themselves. That's OK, except for the issue of collateral damage. For
every addict or alcoholic that he would allow to crash recklessly
into addiction, there are spouses, partners, parents and children
that get burned in the process.

Gangs and criminals operate a form of capitalism that is extremely
resilient. You shut down one drug, they'll find something new to
capitalize on. Drugs are only a symptom, not the cause. Just like
gangs. If you don't solve the core problem -- the environment and
conditions that cause people to need to change the way they feel --
you haven't solved anything. Focus on family issues, on nurture, on
education, on schools, on the examples we see on television. Putting
government into the drug trade would just make gangsters of us all.

Kurt D. Lynn, Toronto.