PRODUCTIVE USERS

Homewood -- The Chicago Tribune has now published a second column by Carol
Marin about the "heroin epidemic" in Chicago. She admits that most heroin
users are often employed. These people are our neighbors, who lead
productive lives and make valuable contributions to society. They just also
happen to use heroin. The real problem is not that people use heroin but
that using heroin is illegal. Prohibition turns otherwise productive
members of society into criminals who risk their lives buying heroin of
uncertain quality on a dangerous and violent black market.

We prohibit heroin (and other recreational drugs) in order to prevent a
small health problem. As Marin admits, most heroin users are able to
function normally enough that their neighbors don't guess that they use heroin.

Does Marin really believe that heroin is more dangerous than nicotine or
alcohol?

But not only do we fail to prevent the small health problem of heroin use,
we create much larger social problems. We maintain a huge portion of our
population in prison, mostly because of the war on drugs. Street gangs, a
plague on our cities, wouldn't be nearly so prevalent if they couldn't make
money selling illegal drugs. And our government wastes billions of dollars
in a quixotic quest to prevent drug use.

I wonder if Marin will have the courage to point this out in a future column?

Matthew Moran