DRUGS A SCAPEGOAT

Dear sir,

Re: Sixteen charged in northwest drug sweep (Sentinel, Aug. 13), why do
governments prohibit certain drugs?

Is it to protect users from harm?

No, that can't be the reason because users suffer more (adulterated
drugs and jail time) when a drug is banned as compared to when it is
legally available.

My wife and I became well acquainted with this aspect of government
policy when we lost our 19-year-old son to street heroin in 1993. Many
more people died from the effects of bad booze during Prohibition than
when alcohol was legally available.

The harm argument is moot in any event because two of our more
dangerous drugs, alcohol and tobacco, are legal.

Is it to reduce the crime associated with illegal drugs?

No, that can't be the reason because banning a drug always gives rise
to more crime (drug cartels, petty crimes by users as prohibition
makes drug prices much higher, violent disputes between dealers) than
when the drug is legally available.

Is it a brutal pogrom to distract and entertain the majority by
ruining the lives of the innocent minority who ingest or sell certain
drugs?

Bingo.

In short, drugs are highly useful, functional and beneficial
scapegoats.

They provide a ruling class with fig leaves to place over the
unsightly social ills that are endemic to the social system over which
they preside and they give the general public a focus for blame in
which a chemical 'bogeyman,' or the 'deviants' who ingest it, are the
root cause for a wide array of complex social problems.

Alan and Eleanor Randell,

Victoria.